MASTERPIECES OF 
MODERN ORATORY 



>HURTE.R 




Class. 
Book. 



r- Q 



Gop}Tiglil X^. 



COFYRIC.HT DEPOSIT. 



\ 



MASTERPIECES OF 



MODERN ORATORY 



EDITED BY 



EDWIN Dubois shurter 

Associate Professor of Public Speaking in the 
University of Texas 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Tw0 Copfts Received 

JAN 10190? 

//Copyright Entry , 

CLASS 0/\ XXc, No. 



COPY B. / 



n \ .~i 



•Ss3 



Copyright, 1906, by 

EDWIN Dubois shurter 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



66.12 



QDbe sattieiTKutn K^tti^ 



GINN & COMPANY 
PRIETORS • BOSTON 



. PRO- 
U.S.A. 



I 



PREFACE 

The fifteen orations in this volume are intended to furnish 
models for students of Oratory, Argumentation, and Debate. 
For the most part the orations are given without abridgment. 
In making the selection the aim has been to include only ora- 
tions that (i) deal with subjects of either contemporary or 
historical interest, (2) were delivered by men eminent as ora- 
tors, and (3) are of inherent literary value. There are of 
course many orators and orations in modern times that fulfill 
these tests, but it is believed that the orations selected are 
fairly representative. A further aim has been to secure such 
variety in the selections as to cover in a single volume the fields 
of deliberative, forensic, pulpit, and demonstrative oratory, 
and so to meet the needs of classes both in argumentation and 
oratorical composition. 

If we give relatively less attention nowadays to the art side 
of oratory, — the manner of delivery, — there is all the more 
need of studying the matter, — the invention, organization, 
and expression of the thought. The young men in our schools 
and colleges, who in a small or large way are bound to be 
called upon to speak in public, should be taught how to com- 
pose for a hearer as distinguished from a reader — how to 
construct an oration as distinguished from an essay. To this 
end oratorical models should be critically studied in order 
that the student may learn and appreciate how masters have 
wielded the language for the purposes of conviction and per- 
suasion. And this should be made an intensive rather than 
an extensive process. To become thoroughly acquainted with 
one great oration is better than a cursory reading of many 

ill 



iv PREFACE 

orations, and especially better than reading the extracts 
contained in books of " choice s'elections." 

With a view of such intensive study each oration in this 
volume is preceded by an introduction, and bibliographies and 
notes are given on pages 339 to 369 inclusive. In the notes, 
which are here and there in the form of suggestive questions, 
the editor has tried to incorporate only such comments as will 
illuminate the text for the average student, and has tried to 
avoid explanation of the familiar or obvious. To avoid confu- 
sion to the general reader, the notes are put by themselves in 
the back part of the book ; and even for the special student, 
each oration should first be read independently of the notes, 
whatever use may subsequently be made of them. 

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Little, Brown & Co. for 
permission to use the text of Webster's speech as contained in 
the volume, Webster's Great Speeches and Orations ; to the 
O. S. Hubbell Company, publishers of The Lincoln- Douglas 
Debates^ for the text of Lincoln's speech ; to Lee & Shepard, 
publishers of the Speeches^ Lectures., a?id Letters of Wendell 
Phillips^ for the oration by Phillips ; to Harper & Brothers, 
publishers of the Orations and Addresses of George William 
Curtis^ for the oration by Curtis ; to Fox, Duffield & Co., 
publishers of Watterson's Compromises of Life, for the speech 
by Watterson ; to Honorable W. Bourke Cockran, for the use 
of his oration on Marshall ; to Callaghan & Co., publishers 
of Dillon's John Marshall, which contains Mr. Cockran's 
oration ; to Bishop J. L. Spalding for permission to use his 
address on " Opportunity," contained in a volume entitled 
Opportunity, and Other Essays and Addresses, published by 
A. C. McClurg & Co. ; and to the Reverend Dr. Henry van 
Dyke for the use of his baccalaureate sermon on " Salt." 

E. D. S. 

The University of Texas 
September, 1906 



CONTENTS 



CONCILIATION WITH THE AMERICAN COLONIES — 

Edmund Burke Page 

Introduction 3 

Text II 

Notes 339 

THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE — 

Daniel Webster 

Introduction ......... 53 

Text 65 

Notes 345 



A 


HOUSE 
STAND "- 


DIVIDED 

-Abraham 


AGAINST 

Lincoln 


ITSELF 


CANNOT 






Introduction 


, , 


, ^ 




129 




Text . 
Reply by 
Rejoinde 
Notes . 


Douglas 
r by Lincoln 


















133 

142 

146 
348 



THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC — Wendell Phillips 

Introduction . . . . . . . . • 153 

Text . . . . . . . . . . -159 

Notes 350 

THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN — George 
William Curtis 

Introduction 189 

Text 192 

Notes 353 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH — Henry W. 

Grady Page 

Introduction 211 

Text 214 

Notes 355 

THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER — Henry Wat- 

TERSON 

Introduction 235 

Text 237 

Notes 356 

EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE — John Warwick Daniel 

Introduction 243 

Text 244 

Notes 357 

EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT — Horace Porter 

Introduction 257 

Text 259 

Notes 358 

THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD DEEDS — Thomas 
Brackett Reed 

Introduction 265 

Text 266 

Notes • . 360 

TRIBUTE TO MARCUS A. H ANN A— Albert Jeremiah 
Beveridge 

Introduction 273 

Text . . . . . 274 

Notes 3^3 

MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION — William 
Bourke Cockran 

Introduction • 279 

Text . . . .280 

Notes 364 



CONTENTS vii 

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION — Carl Schurz page 

Introduction ......... 293 

Text ........... 296 

Notes 364 

OPPORTUNITY — John Lancaster Spalding 

Introduction . . , . . . . . -311 

Text ' . . . . ' . . . . . . .312 

Notes . 367 

SALT — Henry van Dyke 

Introduction 325 

Text . . . . . ... . . . . 326 

Notes 368 



MASTERPIECES OF MODERN 
ORATORY 



CONCILIATION WITH THE AMERI- 
CAN COLONIES 

Edmund Burke 

On moving his resolutions for conciliation WITH THE COLO- 
NIES. House of Commons, March 22, 1775. 

INTRODUCTION 

Edmund Burke, statesman, orator, and man of letters, was born 
in Dublin, Ireland, January 12, 1729. His father, a Protestant, 
was a lawyer with a good practice. His mother was of Irish 
descent and a Catholic. In 1741 he was sent to school at Balli- 
tore, under the tutorship of one Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker 
from Yorkshire. In 1743 he entered Trinity College, Dublin. 
During the five years spent there Burke did not distinguish him- 
self as a student, but he spent much time in reading widely in 
history, politics, literature, and philosophy, — a habit that was con- 
tinued throughout his life. Burke's father intended that his son 
should be a lawyer, and in 1750 Burke was sent to London to pur- 
sue his legal studies. Except for the circumstance of his marriage 
in 1756, his life during the nine years following his removal to 
London is enveloped in almost complete obscurity. He was 
entered at the Middle Temple, but was never admitted to practice. 
General reading doubtless claimed his attention more than the law. 
He had a strong literary bent, and we find him passing his sum- 
mers in retired country villages, reading and writing with desul- 
tory industry. Having displeased his father by failing to enter the 
legal profession, Burke found his allowance withdrawn, and was 
forced to depend chiefly on his pen for a living. In 1765 he 
became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, the head of the 
new Whig ministry. Soon after he was returned to Parliament as 
a member from Wendover, and later from Bristol. He took his 

3 



4 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

seat in time to participate in the debates which preceded the repeal 
of the Stamp Act in 1766, and was continuously in Parliament 
from this time until 1794. He died in 1797. 

Some one has said that a passion for order and a passion for 
justice were the master motives of Burke's life and thought. It is 
interesting to see how these master passions expressed themselves in 
dealing with the three great problems in government which arose dur- 
ing his career, — the problems of America, of India, and of France. 

In dealing with America Burke was unquestionably at his best. 
His highly developed sense of justice led him to protest against 
the paternal policy and high-handed methods of George the Third 
and his Tory supporters. Burke felt that these methods threatened 
liberty not only in the colonies, but also in England ; hence his 
plea for justice to the colonists comported with his passion for 
order. His plan would not violate the principles of the English 
constitution, while it would insure order and tranquillity in the 
colonies. Burke was not, however, a thoroughgoing reformer in 
the modern sense. He has been called the Great Conservative. 
The basis of his plea for conciliation with the American colonies 
fell far short of the principles enunciated in the Declaration of 
Independence. When the Stamp Act was repealed the radical 
wing of the Whig party, led by Pitt and Fox, would have gone 
farther and acknowledged the absolute injustice of taxation with- 
out representation. Not so with Burke ; the declaration of this 
principle would have been to him a too violent breaking with the 
traditions of the English constitution, as he conceived them. He 
therefore warmly supported the Declaratory Act coupled with the 
repeal of the Stamp Act, which asserted " the supreme authority 
of Parliament over the colonies, in all cases whatsoever." In both 
of his speeches on America Burke refuses to discuss the question 
of taxation without representation. That, he said, was not the 
main issue. And yet that was the issue which the colonists raised, 
and the issue which divided the English Whigs. Burke based 
his arguments solely on expediency, so that, as Goldwin Smith 
has pointed out, " you cannot extract from him any definite theory 
of the colonial relation." His conservative attitude, springing from 
his passion for order, as we have seen, was a strong influence in 
the disruption of the Whig party, thus preventing a solid front in 
the opposition to the policy of George the Third. 



BURKE 5 

When the American colonies were forever lost Burke turned 
his attention to India. For many years he had studied the history 
and the workings of English rule in India, and when, in 1786, he 
began a nine years' fight against the injustice and corruption in 
the government of that country, he was unquestionably the best 
informed man in England on Indian affairs. In this contest, as in 
the case of America, Burke's passion for order and for justice did 
not conflict ; and although his efforts to impeach Hastings techni- 
cally failed, the result was a moral victory, for his masterful array 
of facts and splendid oratory led to government refomis on a large 
scale in India. 

In 1789 came the crash of the French Revolution. In dealing 
with the questions thereby involved, Burke's natural conservatism 
became yet more predominant, for he was growing old. His pas- 
sion for order prevented a calm consideration of justice as between 
oppressor and oppressed. He believed the Revolution to be the 
work of atheists and theorists, who were waging war upon the 
institutions which preserve order in society, — upon king, nobles, 
and clergy. So when in 1 790 his " Reflections on the Revolution in 
France " appeared, the Tories and King George, whom Burke had 
stoutly opposed in the American policy, now hailed him as their 
shield and defender. As the Revolution developed its worst fea- 
tures, Burke's hatred of it grew, and his non-judicial attitude, 
violence of temper, and fierce invective, mark a decline of those 
powers of reasoning and persuasion which appear at their best in 
the speech on " Conciliation." 

The leading characteristics, then, of Burke's political philosophy 
are opposed to much that is fundamental in modern systems. He 
belonged to both the old order and the new, — planting himself on 
the old and prophesying the new. All in all, his title to fame as a 
statesman lies not so much in his immediate accomplishment as in 
his influence, — his persistent and eloquent advocacy of those high 
and noble principles which find justification by their adoption in 
modern times. Burke brought to politics a terror of crime, a deep 
humanity, and a keen sensibility. "No one," says Morley, "has 
ever come so close to the details of practical politics, and at the 
same time remembered that these can only be understood and 
dealt with by the aid of the broad conceptions of political philos- 
ophy." " He was," says Buckle,^ " Bacon alone excepted, the 
1 Civilization in England^ chap. vii. 



6 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

greatest political thinker who ever devoted himself to the practice 
of English politics." 

As an orator, Burke did not excel in delivery, though often very- 
effective. " The heavy, Quaker-like figure, the scratch wig, the 
round spectacles, the cumbrous roll of paper which loaded Burke's 
pocket,"^ were not prepossessing. He was tall though not robust, 
angular in his movements, with a somewhat harsh voice that never 
lost a strong Irish accent, and a temper which, when aroused by 
opposition or criticism, often weakened the effect of what he said. 
On the other hand, he possessed many qualities, both natural and 
acquired, which fitted him for his career as an orator. His Protes- 
tant-Catholic parentage, together with the early association with 
his Quaker tutor, conduced to broad-mindedness and toleration in 
an age of intense religious bigotry, and gave him sympathy with 
struggles for liberty and hatred of all forms of oppression. Readi- 
ness in thinking on his feet was aided by early practice in a pri- 
vate debating club, and later in the Robin Hood Club in London. 
Withal, the impress of his native genius was powerfully aided 
by his unflagging industry, — his thoroughness in getting up his 
cases. All his great speeches reveal a marvelous mastery of the 
facts, — a detailed and comprehensive knowledge which make 
them, as he himself said of the utterances of Alfred the Great, 
" both minute and sublime." 

As to the immediate influence of Burke's oratory, there is much 
conflicting testimony among his contemporaries. Prior, in his 
Life of Burke ^ quotes Mr. Curran to the effect that "as an orator 
Burke surpassed all his contemporaries, and was perhaps never 
exceeded." And Grattan says : " Burke is unquestionably the first 
orator among the Commons of England ; boundless in knowledge, 
instantaneous in his apprehensions, and abundant in his language. 
He speaks with profound attention and acknowledged superiority, 
notwithstanding the want of energy, grace, and elegance in his 
manner." Erskine said to Mr. Rush, the American minister : " I 
was in the House when Burke made his great speech on American 
Conciliation, — the greatest he ever made. He drove everybody 
away. When I read it, I read it over and over again ; I could 
hardly think of anything else." 

Erskine's testimony furnishes the key to a just estimate of Burke's 
oratory. Judged by its ultimate influence, he was unquestionably 

1 Green, Short History of the English People^ p. 770, 



BURKE 7 

the greatest orator England has ever produced. And yet it must 
be admitted that his speeches were generally unsuited to the 
needs of the House of Commons. Burke was an orator rather than 
a debater, a statesman rather than a politician, the champion of a 
principle rather than the legislative manipulator. His speeches 
are largely political lectures ; hence his title of Philosopher- 
Statesman. Unlike Fox, Burke was not content to seize upon 
the strong points of a case and cast aside inteiTnediate thoughts. 
His exuberant fancy and wide knowledge led him to adduce 
details, illustrations, repetitions, maxims, and figures, which were so 
interwoven with his main arguments that his speeches were apt to 
weary men who cared for nothing, and could not be expected to 
care for anything, but the question before the House and the most 
expeditious way to settle it. 

Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat 
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote ; 
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining.i 

Johnson says that Burke's early speeches " filled the town with 
wonder," but adds that " he spoke too often and too long." Not 
that his speeches always went wide of the mark in delivery, for 
they were sometimes remarkably effective ; but Burke frequently 
combined his thoughts and knowledge in propositions so weighty 
and strong that the minds of ordinary hearers were not on the 
instant prepared for them. Boswell once asked him why he took 
so much pains with his speeches, knowing that not one vote would 
be gained by them. Burke replied that his reputation was at stake, 
and further, that although the House might not grant his whole 
contention, a law was frequently so modified as to be less oppres- 
sive. " Aye, sir," Johnson broke in, " and there is a gratification 
of pride. Though we cannot outvote them, we will outargue 
them." " Outarguing," says Morley, " is not the right word. Burke 
surrenders himself wholly to the matter, and follows up, though 
with a strong and close tread, all the excursions to which it may 
give rise in an elastic intelligence." Yet always the " strong and 
close tread." Take the speech on Conciliation, for example. What- 
ever may be the intricacies of its details, and although the solidity 

1 From Goldsmith's Retaliation. 



8 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

of the structure may be hidden by flowers, yet, like a great cathe- 
dral, throughout the whole there is a massive unity of design. 

It is the literary quality of Burke's speeches, then, that renders 
them of interest to-day and is chiefly responsible for the perpetuity 
of his fame as an orator. The leading characteristics of his subject- 
matter and style (already incidentally referred to) are : 

1. Thoroughness of treat?nent. This manifests itself in a broad 
comprehensiveness joined to an amplitude of detail, — in general- 
ization coupled with exhaustiveness. Burke has been called 
" myriad-minded." Both depth and breadth are shown in the treat- 
ment of every subject he discussed. 

2. Rhetorical excellence. This was secured by much practice in 
writing. His principal speeches were carefully prepared in advance, 
though not always rigidly adhered to in delivery ; hence an excel- 
lence in form and finish which could not have been attained in 
extemporaneous efforts. He always wrote, however, with an audi- 
ence in mind. Like Macaulay, his prevailing style suggests the 
speaker. As we have seen, the finished elaborateness of his 
speeches were a drawback in delivery, and occasionally the reader 
nowadays feels the justice of Johnson's stricture, that " he some- 
times talked partly from ostentation " ; or of Hazlitt's criticism, 
that he seemed to be " perpetually calling the Speaker out to dance 
a minuet with him before he begins." But while there are pas- 
sages here and there that may warrant such censure, — evident 
self-consciousness and a lack of ease and delicacy, — yet the dom- 
inant quality of his style contradicts the idea of the mere rhetori- 
cian dealing in fine phrases, but rather reveals the master wielding 
language to subserve a controlling purpose. 

3. Figurative language. Burke's fertility of imagery, compari- 
sons, analogies, and illustrations, enabled him to exhaust a subject 
without tediousness, so that we have much reiteration and reen- 
forcement without mere repetition. His idea of a truly fine sen- 
tence, as once stated to a friend, consists in a " union of thought, 
feeling, and imagery, — of a striking truth and a corresponding 
sentiment, rendered doubly striking by the force and beauty of 
figurative language." In such sentences Burke's speeches and 
writings abound. He is no doubt excessively ornate at times, his 
figures being placed in such bold relief or dwelt upon so long that 
the primary idea is lost sight of in the image. We find great 
extremes of imagery, from his much-admired picture of the queen 



BURKE 9 

of France, as he saw her " just above the horizon, decorating and 
cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glit- 
tering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy," or 
of friendship as " the soft green of the soul, on which the eye loves 
to repose," to Lord Chatham's administration " pigging together in 
the same truckle-bed," — and other comparisons yet more vulgar. 
While a master of the decorative style, Burke does not always 
escape the faults that usually accompany an abundance of figures. 
His imagination seemed to need the restraining and chastening 
influence of a critical situation, such as was afforded in the efforts 
for " conciliation " with America. 

4. Co7n77iand of words. In his deliberative speeches Burke's 
tendency, as we have seen, was to overload his main arguments 
with too many collateral topics. Likewise his sentences frequently 
contain secondary thoughts — qualifying and modifying clauses — 
which tend to weaken the blow by dividing it. This method of 
exhaustiveness in treatment required the use of many words ; but 
though copious in language, he is rarely verbose. Though he 
usually develops every phase of his subject, he always illuminates 
it. His multifarious ideas always find fitting expression. By the 
introduction of a fresher and more natural diction Burke gave 
a lasting stimulus to English prose literature, his writings and 
speeches — notably the speech in this volume — being studied as 
models in present-day English. 

5. Passion. It was his passion for order and justice, previously 
mentioned, that inspired his commanding and noble passages and 
colored the words in which they were expressed ; so that we are 
made to feel that the more magnificent passages must have been 
written in moments of absolute abandonment to feeling. It was 
his passion, after all, that produced his style — the amplitude, the 
weightiness, the high flight, and the grandeur that comported with 
his imperial themes — and makes his productions now worth while. 

To su7)iinarize : As an orator, Burke was outclassed by Pitt, 
Fox, and Sheridan in immediate influence upon the House of Com- 
mons, but he far surpassed them all in his ultimate influence. " He 
had not the impetuous and splendid eloquence of Chatham, nor 
the remarkable skill in debate of Fox, but in learning, in the power 
of clothing great thoughts in the most appropriate words, and of 
producing speeches which were even more interesting when read 
than when they were delivered, he far surpassed them both." 



lO CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

Macaulay speaks of him as " superior, in aptitude of comprehen- 
sion and richness of imagination, to every orator, ancient or 
modern." 

As a man, all that we know of Burke is of good repute. Some 
of his contemporary political opponents attempted to impeach his 
honesty because of his extravagances, and later critics have 
essayed to cast a shadow over his early life in London, concerning 
which Burke always maintained a dignified silence; but there is no 
evidence to substantiate these charges. There is no reason for 
doubting that the noble thoughts and high principles which 
Burke enunciated, emanated from an earnest mind and a sound 
character. He has therefore wielded an influence that has not yet 
by any means spent its force. The consensus of opinion points to 
Burke as an abiding name in history. Wordsworth believed him to 
be " by far the greatest man of his age," and Macaulay considered 
him " the greatest man since Milton." " He is not only the first 
man in the House of Commons," said Johnson, his political oppo- 
nent, " he is the first man everywhere." " A gentleman," said 
Sheridan, "whose abilities, happily for the glory of the age in 
which we live, are not entrusted to the perishable eloquence of the 
day, but shall live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us 
shall be mute, and most of us forgotten." 

It is a mark of Burke's singular and varied genius that hardly 
any two people agree precisely as to which of his productions 
should be considered the masterpiece. Each great essay or speech 
that he composed is the rival of every other. But his speech on 
Conciliation has perhaps been most universally admired, — " the 
wisest in its temper, the most closely logical in its reasoning, the 
amplest in appropriate topics, the most generous and conciliatory 
in the substance of its appeals." 

When this speech was delivered in the House of Commons, 
events in the colonies were fast hastening toward the Declaration 
of Independence. The first Continental Congress had met, and 
within a month the battles of Concord and Lexington were fought. 
On February 20, 1775, Lord North, then Prime Minister, brought 
forward so-called " Propositions for Conciliating the Differences 
with America." Burke seized the opportunity to propose a method 
of conciliation that might be really effective ; for, as he shows in 
the speech following (paragraphs 63-76), Lord North's plan was 



BURKE II 

a scheme to divide and conquer. Burke proposed that instead of 
imposing taxes the colonies be granted the opportunity of taxing 
themselves, and trust the result to the natural loyalty of a kindred 
people. He waived all discussion of the right oi taxation, but based 
his argument solely on expediency. But it is not Burke's partic- 
ular plan — for that may have been impracticable — that chiefly 
interests and holds us now ; it is rather the high and noble principles 
underlying such plan, and the wise political maxims with which the 
speech abounds, — maxims which have no doubt been quoted by 
succeeding statesmen more fully and frequently than in the case 
of any other speech in oratorical literature. 

I. I hope, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, 
your good nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence 
towards human frailty. You will not think it unnatural that 
those who have an object depending, which strongly engages 
their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined to super- 5 
stition. As I came into the House full of anxiety about the 
event of my motion, I found, to my infinite surprise, that 
the grand penal bill, by which we had passed sentence on the 
trade and sustenance of America, is to be returned to us from 
the other House. I do confess I could not help looking on 10 
this event as a fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of 
providential favor, by which we are put once more in possession 
of our deliberative capacity upon a business so very question- 
able in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the return 
of this bill, which seemed to have taken its flight forever, we 15 
are at this very instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our 
American Government as we were on the first day of the ses- 
sion. If, Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not 
at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by 
any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are 20 
therefore called upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, 
again to attend to America ; to attend to the whole of it 
together ; and to review the subject with an unusual degree 
of care and calmness. 



12 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

2. Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this 
side of the grave. When I first had the honor of a seat in this 
House, the affairs of that continent pressed themselves upon 
us as the most important and most deHcate object of Parlia- 

5 mentary attention. My Httle share in this great deliberation 
oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high trust; 
and, having no sort of reason to rely on the strength of my 
natural abilities for the proper execution of that trust, I was 
obliged to take more than common pains to instruct myself in 

lo everything which relates to our colonies. I was not less under 
the necessity of forming some fixed ideas concerning the gen- 
eral policy of the British Empire. Something of this sort 
seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctua- 
tion of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to 

15 ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by 
every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it 
safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh 
mail which should arrive from America. 

3. At that period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect 
20 concurrence with a large majority in this House. Bowing under 

that high authority, and penetrated with the sharpness and 
strength of that early impression, I have continued ever since, 
without the least deviation, in my original sentiments. Whether 
this be owing to an obstinate perseverance in error, or to a 
25 religious adherence to what appears to me truth and reason, it 
is in your equity to judge. 

4. Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, made, 
during this interval, more frequent changes in their sentiments 
and their conduct than could be justified in a particular per- 

30 son upon the contracted scale of private information. But 
though I do not hazard anything approaching to a censure on 
the motives of former Parliaments to all those alterations, one 
fact is undoubted — that under them the state of America has 
been kept in continual agitation. Everything administered as 



BURKE 13 

remedy to the public complaint, if it did not produce, was at 
least followed by, an heightening of the distemper ; until, 
by a variety of experiments, that important country has been 
brought into her present situation — a situation which I will 
not miscall, which I dare not name, which I scarcely know 5 
how to comprehend in the terms of any description. 

5. To restore order and repose to an empire so great and 
so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking 
that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and obtain 
pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. Struggling 10 
a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself 
more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence from what 

in other circumstances usually produces timidity. I grew less 
anxious, even from the idea of my own insignificance. For, 
judging of what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded 15 
myself that you would not reject a reasonable proposition 
because it had nothing but its reason to recommend it. On 
the other hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of influ- 
ence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure that, if my prop- 
osition were futile or dangerous — if it were weakly conceived, 20 
or improperly timed — there was nothing exterior to it of 
power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see it just as it 
is ; and you will treat it just as it deserves. 

6. The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium 

of war ; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intri- 25 
cate and endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out of uni- 
versal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of the 
Empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical determination 
of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy 
boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace ; 30 
sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is 
peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles 
purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the 



14 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence 
of the colonies in the Mother Country, to give permanent 
satisfaction to your people ; and (far from a scheme of ruling 
by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act 
5 and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles 
them to British government. 

7. My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been 
the parent of confusion ; and ever will be so, as long as the 
world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discov- 

10 ered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let 
me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. 
Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and cementing prin- 
ciple. My plan, therefore, being formed upon the most simple 
grounds imaginable, may disappoint some people when they 

15 hear it. It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency 
of curious ears. There is nothing at all new and captivating 
in it. It has nothing of the splendor of the project which has 
been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord in the blue 
ribbon. It does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling 

20 colony agents, who will require the interposition of your mace, 
at every instant, to keep the peace amongst them. It does 
not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated 
provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each 
other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a 

25 proportion of payments beyond all the powers of algebra to 
equalize and settle. 

8. The plan which I shall presume to suggest derives, how- 
ever, one great advantage from the proposition and registry of 
that noble lord's project. The idea of conciliation is admis- 

30 sible. First, the House, in accepting the resolution moved by 
the noble lord, has admitted — notwithstanding the menacing 
front of our address, notwithstanding our heavy bills of pains 
and penalties — that we do not think ourselves precluded from 
all ideas of free grace and bounty. 



BURKE 15 

9. The House has gone farther; it has declared concihation 
admissible, previous to any submission on the part of America. 
It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has 
admitted that the complaints of our former mode of exerting 
the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. That right 5 
thus exerted is allowed to have something reprehensible in it, 
something unwise, or something grievous ; since, in the midst 

of our heat and resentment, we, of ourselves, have proposed a 
capital alteration ; and in order to get rid of what seemed so 
very exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is altogether 10 
new; one that is, indeed, wholly alien from all the ancient 
methods and forms of Parliament. 

10. The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my 
purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord for carrying 
his ideas into execution, I think, indeed, are very indifferently 15 
suited to the end ; and this I shall endeavor to show you 
before I sit down. But, for the present, I take my ground on 
the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies 
reconcihation ; and where there has been a material dispute, 
reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the 20 
one part or on the other. In this state of things I make no 
difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate from 
us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in 
effect or in opinion, by an unwilUngness to exert itself. The 
superior power may offer peace with honor and with safety. 25 
Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magna- 
nimity. But the concessions of the weak are the concessions 

of fear. When such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the 
mercy of his superior ; and he loses forever that time and 
those chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the 30 
strength and resources of all inferior power. 

II. The capital leading questions on which you must this 
day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to con- 
cede ; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On 



l6 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

the first of these questions we have gained, as I have just 
taken the liberty of observing to you, some ground. But I am 
sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, 
Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other 
5 of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I 
think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature 
and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have 
before us ; because after all our struggle, whether we will or 
not, we must govern America according to that nature and to 
10 those circumstances, and not according to our own imagina- 
tions, nor according to abstract ideas of "right — by no means 
according to mere general theories of government, the resort 
to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better 
than arrant trifling. I shall therefore endeavor, with your 
15 leave, to lay before you some of the most material of these 
circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to 
state them. 

1 2 . The first thing that we have to consider with regard to 
the nature of the object is — the number of people in the 
20 colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains on 
that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing 
the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own 
European blood and color, besides at least five hundred thou- 
sand others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength 
25 and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I beheve, about the 
true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate where plain 
truth is of so much weight and importance. But whether I put 
the present numbers too high or too low is a matter of little 
moment. Such is the strength with which population shoots 
30 in that part of the world, that, state the numbers as high as 
we will, whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. 
Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they are grown 
to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode 
of governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more 



BURKE 17 

to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy 
to manhood than they spread from famihes to communities, 
and from villages to nations. 

13. I put this consideration of the present and the growing 
numbers in the front of our deliberation, because. Sir, this 5 
consideration will make it evident to a blunter discernment 
than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occa- 
sional system will be at all suitable to such an object. It will 
show you that it is not to be considered as one of those rnin- 
ima which are out of the eye and consideration of the law; 10 
not a paltry excrescence of the state ; not a mean dependent, 
who may be neglected with little damage and provoked with 
little danger. It will prove that some degree of care and cau- 
tion is required in the handling such an object ; it will show 
that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a mass of 15 
the interests and feelings of the human race. You could at no 
time do so without guilt ; and be assured you will not be able 

to do it long with impunity. 

14. But the population of this country, the great and grow- 
ing population, though a very important consideration, will 20 
lose much of its weight if not combined with other circum- 
stances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all propor- 
tion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their 
commerce indeed has been trod some days ago, and with 
great ability, by a distinguished person at your bar. This 25 
gentleman, after thirty-five years — it is so long since he first 
appeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of 
Great Britain — has come again before you to plead the same 
cause, without any other effect of time, than that to the fire 

of imagination and extent of erudition which even then 30 
marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, 
he has added a consummate knowledge in the commercial 
interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened 
and discriminating experience. 



l8 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

15. Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a 
person with any detail, if a great part of the members who 
now fill the House had not the misfortune to be absent when 
he appeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I propose to take the 

5 matter at periods of time somewhat different from his. There 
is, if I mistake not, a point of view from whence, if you will 
look at the subject, it is impossible that it should not make an 
impression upon you. 

16. I have in my hand two accounts; one a comparative 
10 state of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it stood 

in the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772 ; the other 
a state of the export trade of this country to its colonies 
alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of 
England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in 

15 the year 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter 
period from the accounts on your table, the earlier from an 
original manuscript of Davenant, who first established the 
Inspector-General's office, which has been ever since his time 
so abundant a source of Parliamentary information. 

20 17. The export trade to the colonies consists of three great 
branches : the African — which, terminating almost wholly in 
the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce, 
— the West Indian, and the North American. All these are 
so interwoven that the attempt to separate them would tear 

25 to pieces the contexture of the whole; and, if not entirely 
destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. 
I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in 
effect they are, one trade. 

18. The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at 

30 the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood 
thus : 

Exports to North America and the West Indies . . ;^483,265 
To Africa 86,665 

;^569.930 



BURKE 19 

19. In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year be- 
tween the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, 
the account was as follows : 

To North America and the West Indies .... £4,79^,734 

To Africa . 866,398 5 

To which, if you add the export trade from 

Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence . . . 364,000 

^6,022,132 

20. From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to 
six millions. It has increased no less than twelve-fold. This 10 
is the state of the colony trade as compared with itself at these 
two periods within this century ; — and this is matter for 
meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account. 
See how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood 

in the other point of view; that is, as compared to the whole 15 
trade of England in 1704 : 

The whole export trade of England, including 

that to the colonies, in 1704 ^6,509,000 

Export to the colonies alone, in 1772 6,024,000 

Difference ;i^485,ooo 20 

21. The trade with America alone is now within less than 
;£'5 00,000 of being equal to what this great commercial nation, 
England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the 
whole world ! If I had taken the largest year of those on your 
table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be said, is 25 
not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has 
drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse. It 

is the very food that has nourished every other part into its 
present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly aug- 
mented, and augmented more or less in almost every part to 30 
which it ever extended ; but with this material difference, 
that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century 
constituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the 



20 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

colony trade was but one-twelfth part ; it is now (as a part of 
sixteen millions) considerably more than a third of the whole. 
This is the relative proportion of the importance of the col- 
onies at these two periods ; and all reasoning concerning our 

5 mode of treating them must have this proportion as its basis ; 
or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical. 

22. Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over 
this great consideration. // is good for us to be here. We 
stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is 

lo past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. 
Let us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, 
reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has hap- 
pened within the short period of the life of man. It has hap- 
pened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose 

15 memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my 
Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. 
He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend 
such things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam 
kgere, et qtice sit potiiit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that 

20 the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues 
which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the 
most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision 
that when in the fourth generation the third Prince of the 
House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of 

25 that nation which, by the happy issue of moderate and healing 
counsels, was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son. 
Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current of heredi- 
tary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of 
peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one — if, 

30 amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and 
prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and 
unfolded the rising glories of his country, and, whilst he was 
gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of 
England, the genius should point out to him a httle speck, 



BURKE 21 

scarcely visible in the mass of the national interest, a small 
seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell 
him : " Young man, there is America — which at this day 
serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage 
men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of 5 
death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which 
now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has 
been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, 
brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing 
conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen 10 
hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America 
in the course of a single life ! " If this state of his country 
had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine 
credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to 
make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it ! 15 
Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary 
the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day ! 

23. Excuse me. Sir, if turning from such thoughts I resume 
this comparative view once more. You have seen it on a 
large scale ; look at it on a small one. I will point out to 20 
your attention a particular instance of it in the single province 

of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704 that province called for 
;;^i 1,459 i^ value of your commodities, native and foreign. 
This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why, 
nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the export to 25 
Pennsylvania was ;^507,909, nearly equal to the export to all 
the colonies together in the first period. 

24. I choose. Sir, to enter into these minute and particular de- 
tails, because generalities, which in all other cases are apt to 
heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency to sink it. 30 
When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after 
truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren. 

25. So far. Sir, as to the importance of the object, in view 
of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. 



22 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many en- 
joyments they procure which deceive the burthen of life ; 
how many materials which invigorate the springs of national 
industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign 
5 and domestic commerce. This would be a curious subject in- 
deed ; but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so 
vast and various. 

26. I pass, therefore, to the colonies in another point of 
view, — their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such 

10 a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing 
multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, 
has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last 
harvest I am persuaded they will export much more. At the 
beginning of the century some of these colonies imported 

15 corn from the Mother Country. For some time past the Old 
World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you 
have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child of 
your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, 
had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance , to the 

20 mouth of its exhausted parent. 

27. As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from 
the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened 
at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, 
for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit 

25 by which that enterprising employment has been exercised 
ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and 
admiration. And pray. Sir, what in the world is equal to it? 
Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the 
people of New England have of late carried on the whale 

30 fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains 
of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen 
recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are 
looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they 
have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they 



BURKE 23 

are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent 
of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and 
romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a 
stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious in- 
dustry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them 5 
than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know 
that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon 
on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue 
their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but 
what is vexed by their fisheries; no climate that is not wit- 10 
ness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor 
the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity 
of English enterprise ever carried this most perilous mode 
of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by 
this recent people ; a people who are still, as it were, but in 1 5 
the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. 
When I contemplate these things ; when I know that the 
colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, 
and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the 
constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, 20 
through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has 
been suffered to take her own way to perfection ; when I re- 
flect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have 
been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presump- 
tion in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away 25 
within me. My rigor relents. I pardon something to the 
spirit of liberty. 

[Burke here refutes the plan of employing force in the govern- 
ment of the colonies, because, he says, the use of force alone is 
temporary, uncertain, experimental, and because " You impair the 
object by your very endeavors to preserve it."] 

28. There is a third consideration concerning this object 
which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy 
which ought to be pursued in the management of America, 30 



24 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

even more than its population and its commerce — I mean its 
temper and character. 

29. In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom 
is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes 
5 the whole ; and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your 
colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever 
they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or 
shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advan- 
tage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger 

10 in the Enghsh colonies probably than in any other people of 
the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes ; 
which, to understand the true temper of their minds and the 
direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay 
open somewhat more largely. 

15 30. First, the people of the colonies are descendants of 
Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, 
respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists 
emigrated from you when this part of your character was most 
predominant; and they took this bias and direction the mo- 

20 ment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not 
only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English 
ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other 
mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in 
some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself 

25 some favorite point, which by way of eminence becomes the 
criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know. Sir, that 
the great contests for freedom in this country were from the 
earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of 
the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily 

30 on the right of election of magistrates ; or on the balance 
among the several orders of the state. The question of money 
was not with them so immediate. But in England it was 
otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens, and most 
eloquent tongues, have been exercised; the greatest spirits 



BURKE 25 

have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfac- 
tion concerning the importance of this point, it was not only 
necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence 
of the English Constitution to insist on this privilege of grant- 
ing money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right 5 
had been acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind 
usages to reside in a certain body called a House of Commons. 
They went much farther ; they attempted to prove, and they 
succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particu- 
lar nature of a House of Commons as an immediate represent- 10 
ative of the people, whether the old records had dehvered 
this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a 
fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must 
in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the 
power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty 15 
can subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life- 
blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as 
with you, fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. 
Liberty might be safe, or might be endangered, in twenty 
other particulars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. 20 
Here they felt its pulse ; and as they found that beat, they 
thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they 
were right or wrong in applying your general arguments to 
their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly 
of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus 25 
apply those general arguments ; and your mode of governing 
them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom 
or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as 
well as you, had an interest in these common principles. 

31. They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by 30 
the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their gov- 
ernments are popular in an high degree ; some are merely pop- 
ular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; 
and this share of the people in their ordinary government 



26 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a 
strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their 
chief importance. 

32. Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our 
5 colonies which contributes no mean part towards the growth 
and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. 
In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a 
study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful ; and 
in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of 

10 the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who 
read, and most do read, endeavor to, -obtain some smattering 
in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, 
that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devo- 
tion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the 

15 Plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of 
printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold 
nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as 
in England. General Gage marks out this disposition very 
particularly in a letter on your table. He states that all the 

20 people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law; 
and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chi- 
cane, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital penal 
constitutions. The smartness of debate will say that this knowl- 
edge ought to teach them more clearly the rights of legislature, 

25 their obligations to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. 
All this is mighty well. But my honorable and learned friend 
on the floor, who condescends to mark what I say for animad- 
version, will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, 
that when great honors and great emoluments do not win over 

30 this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable 
adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and 
broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. 
Abeunt studia in mores. This study renders men acute, in- 
quisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full 



BURKE 27 

of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, 
and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in 
government only by an actual grievance ; here they antici- 
pate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by 
the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment 5 
at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every 
tainted breeze. 

^^. The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies 
is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, 
but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three 10 
thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No con- 
trivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening 
government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order 
and the execution ; and the want of a speedy explanation of a 
single point is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, 15 
indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts 
in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there 
a power steps in that limits the arrogance of raging passions 
and furious elements, and says. So far shalt thou go, and no 
fai'thei'. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite 20 
the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than 
does to all nations who have extensive empire ; and it 
happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. 
In large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous 
at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot gov- 25 
ern Egypt and Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace ; 
nor has he the same dominion in Crimea and Algiers which 
he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to 
truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he 
can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all ; 30 
and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his 
centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. 
Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so well obeyed as you 
are in yours. She complies, too ; she submits ; she watches 



28 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law of 
extensive and detached empire. 

34. Then, Sir, from these six sources — of descent, of 
form of government, of religion in the Northern Provinces, 

5 of manners in the Southern, of education, of the remoteness 
of situation from the first mover of government — from all 
these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has 
grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and 
increased with the increase of their wealth ; a spirit that un- 
10 happily meeting with an exercise of power in England which, 
however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, 
much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready 
to consume us. 

35. I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this 
15 excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more 

smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would 
be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might be 
desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless 
authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be per- 

20 suaded that their liberty is more secure when held in trust for 
them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual minority, 
than with any part of it in their own hands. The question is, 
not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame, but — what, 
in the name of God, shall we do with it? You have before 

25 you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, with all its 
imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude, the impor- 
tance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these 
considerations we are strongly urged to determine something 
concerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule and line 

30 for our future conduct which may give a little stability to our 
politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations 
as the present. Every such return will bring the matter before 
us in a still more untractable form. For, what astonishing and 
incredible things have we not seen already ! What monsters 



BURKE 29 

have not been generated from this unnatural contention ! 
Whilst every principle of authority and resistance has been 
pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would go, there is noth- 
ing so solid and certain, either in reasoning or in practice, 
that has not been shaken. Until very lately all authority in 5 
America seemed to be nothing but an emanation from yours. 
Even the popular part of the colony constitution derived all 
its activity and its first vital movement from the pleasure of 
the Crown. We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the dis- 
contented colonists could do was to disturb authority ; we 10 
never dreamt they could of themselves supply it — knowing 
in general what an operose business it is to establish a govern- 
ment absolutely new. But having, for our purposes in this 
contention, resolved that none but an obedient Assembly 
should sit, the humors of the people there, finding all passage 15 
through the legal channel stopped, with great violence broke 
out another way. Some provinces have tried their experi- 
ment, as we have tried ours ; and theirs has succeeded. They 
have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without 
the bustle of a revolution or the troublesome formality of an 20 
election. Evident necessity and tacit consent have done the 
business in an instant. So well they have done it, that Lord 
Dunmore — the account is among the fragments on your table 
— tells you that the new institution is infinitely better obeyed 
than the ancient government ever was in its most fortunate 25 
periods. Obedience is what makes government, and not the 
names by which it is called ; not the name of Governor, as 
formerly, or Committee, as at present. This new government 
has originated directly from the people, and was not trans- 
mitted through any of the ordinary artificial media of a positive 30 
constitution. It was not a manufacture ready formed, and 
transmitted to them in that condition from England. The 
evil arising from hence is this ; that the colonists having once 
found the possibility of enjoying the advantages of order in 



30 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

the midst of a struggle for liberty, such struggles will not 
henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of 
mankind as they had appeared before the trial. 

36. Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the 
5 exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly ab- 
rogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We were 
confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect, of an- 
archy would instantly enforce a complete submission. The 
experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of 

10 things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province 
has now subsisted, and subsisted in a <!onsiderable degree of 
health and vigor for near a twelvemonth, without Governor, 
without public Council, without judges, without executive 
magistrates. How long it will continue in this state, or what 

15 may arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest 
of us conjecture? Our late experience has taught us that 
many of those fundamental principles, formerly believed in- 
fallible, are either not of the importance they were imagined 
to be, or that we have not at all adverted to some other far 

20 more important and far more powerful principles, which en- 
tirely overrule those we had considered as omnipotent. I am 
much against any further experiments which tend to put to the 
proof any more of these allowed opinions which contribute so 
much to the public tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as much 

25 at home by this loosening of all ties, and this concussion of all 
established opinions, as we do abroad ; for in order to prove 
that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are 
every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve 
the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans 

30 ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value 
of freedom itself ; and we never seem to gain a paltry advan- 
tage over them in debate without attacking some of those 
principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our 
ancestors have shed their blood. 



BURKE 31 

37. But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experi- 
ments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far 
from it. Far from deciding on a sudden or partial view, I would 
patiently go round and round the subject, and survey it minutely 

in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable of engaging you 5 
to an equal attention, I would state that, as far as I am capa- 
ble of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding rela- 
tive to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your colonies, 
and disturbs your government. These are — to change that 
spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes ; to prosecute 10 
it as criminal; or to comply with it as necessary. I would 
not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration ; I can think of 
but these three. Another has indeed been started, — that 
of giving up the colonies; but it met so slight a reception that 
I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. 15 
It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the frowardness of 
peevish children, who, when they cannot get all they would 
have, are resolved to take nothing. 

38. The first of these plans — to change the spirit, as in- 
convenient, by removing the causes — I think is the most like 20 
a systematic proceeding. It is radical in its principle ; but it 

is attended with great difficulties, some of them little short, as 
I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examining 
into the plans which have been proposed. 

39. As the growing population in the colonies is evidently 25 
one cause of their resistance, it was last session mentioned in 
both Houses, by men of weight, and received not without 
applause, that in order to check this evil it would be proper 
for the Crown to make no further grants of land. But to this 
scheme there are two objections. The first, that there is al- 30 
ready so much unsettled land in private hands as to afford 
room for an immense future population, although the Crown 
not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. If this be 
the case, then the only effect of this avarice of desolation, this 



32 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to raise the value of 
the possessions in the hands of the great private monopolists, 
without any adequate check to the growing and alarming 
mischief of population. 
5 40. But if you stopped your grants, what would be the con- 
sequence? The people would occupy without grants. They 
have already so occupied in many places. You cannot station 
garrisons in every part of these deserts. If you drive the 
people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage, 

10 and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of 
the people in the back settlements are already little attached 
to particular situations. Already they have topped the Appa- 
lachian mountains. From thence they behold before them an 
immense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow ; a square of five 

15 hundred miles. Over this they would wander without a possi- 
bility of restraint ; they would change their manners with the 
habits of their life ; would soon forget a government by which 
they were disowned ; would become hordes of English Tar- 
tars ; and, pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a 

20 fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your govern- 
ors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, 
and of all the slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and 
in no long time must be, the effect of attempting to forbid as 
a crime and to suppress as an evil the command and blessing 

25 of Providence, Inc7^ease and multiply. Such would be the 
happy result of the endeavor to keep as a lair of wild beasts 
that earth which God, by an express charter, has given to the 
children of men. Far different, and surely much wiser, has 
been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, 

30 by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have 
invited the husbandman to look to authority for his title. We 
have taught him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of 
wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as 
it was peopled, into districts, that the ruling power should 



BURKE 33 

never be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we could ; 
and we have carefully attended every settlement with govern- 
ment. 

41. Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the 
reasons I have just given, I think this new project of hedging- 5 
in population to be neither prudent nor practicable. 

42. To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particu- 
lar to arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, would 
be a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have shown a 
disposition to a system of this kind, a disposition even to con- 10 
tinue the restraint after the offence, looking on ourselves as 
rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of course we must 
gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we may certainly 
do. The power inadequate to all other things is often more • 
than sufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and im- 15 
mediate power of the colonies to resist our violence as very 
formidable. In this, however, I may be mistaken. But when 

I consider that we have colonies for no purpose but to be serv- 
iceable to us, it seems to my poor understanding a little pre- 
posterous to make them unserviceable in order to keep them 20 
obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old and, as I 
thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beg- 
gar its subjects into submission. But remember, when you 
have completed your system of impoverishment, that nature 
still proceeds in her ordinary course ; that discontent will in- 25 
crease with misery ; and that there are critical moments in 
the fortune of all states when they who are too weak to con- 
tribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to complete 
your ruin. Spoliatis arma siipersunt. 

43. The temper and character which prevail in our colonies 30 
are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I 
fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade 
them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins 
the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they 



34 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition ; 
your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest 
person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery. 
44. I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their 
5 republican religion as their free descent ; or to substitute the 
Roman Catholic as a penalty, or the Church of England as 
an improvement. The mode of inquisition and dragooning is 
going out of fashion in the Old World, and I should not con- 
fide much to their efficacy in the New. The education of the 

10 Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom with their 
religion. You cannot persuade them to burn their books of 
curious science; to banish their lawyers from their courts of 
laws ; or to quench the lights of their assemblies by refusing to 
choose those persons who are best read in their privileges. It 

15 would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating 
the popular assemblies in which these lawyers sit. The army, 
by which we must govern in their place, would be far more 
chargeable to us, not quite so effectual, and perhaps in the 
end full as difficult to be kept in obedience. 

20 45. But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. 
The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry ; and as long 
as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes which 
weaken authority by distance will continue. 

Ye Gods, annihilate but space and time, 
25 And make two lovers happy ! 

was a pious and passionate prayer ; but just as reasonable as 
many of the serious wishes of grave and solemn politicians. 

46. If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any 
alterative course for changing the moral causes, and not quite 
30 easy to remove the natural, which produce prejudices irrecon- 
cilable to the late exercise of our authority — but that the spirit 
infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will produce such 



BURKE "" 35 , 

effects as now embarrass us — the second mode under consid- 
eration is to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts as criminal. 

47. At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thing 
seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It 
should seem to my way of conceiving such matters that there 5 
is a very wide difference, in reason and policy, between the 
mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered in- 
dividuals, or even of bands of men who disturb order within 
the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to 
time, on great questions, agitate the several communities 10 
which compose a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow 
and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice 

to this great pubHc contest. I do not know the method of 
drawing up an indictment against a whole people. I cannot 
insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-crea- 15 
tures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual 
(Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar. I hope I am not ripe to pass 
sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magis- 
tracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the 
safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I 20 
am. I really think that, for wise men, this is not judicious ; 
for sober men, not decent; for minds tinctured with humanity, 
not mild and merciful. 

48. Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, 

as distinguished from a single state or kingdom. But my idea 25 
of it is this : that an empire is the aggregate of many states 
under one common head, whether this head be a monarch or 
a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequently 
happen — and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity 
of servitude can prevent its happening — that the subordinate 30 
parts have many local privileges and immunities. Between 
these privileges and the supreme common authority the line 
may be extremely nice. Of course disputes, often, too, very 
bitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. But though 



36 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

every privilege is an exemption, in the case, from the ordinary 
exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial of it. The 
claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, to imply a 
superior power ; for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a 
5 person who has no superior is hardly any better than speaking 
nonsense. Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among the com- 
ponent parts of a great political union of communities, I can 
scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent than 
for the head of the empire to insist that, if any privilege is 

lo pleaded against his will or his acts, his whole authority is 
denied \ instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, and 
to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this, 
Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on 
their part? Will it not teach them that the government, 

15 against which a claim of liberty is tantamount to high treason, 
is a government to which submission is equivalent to slavery? 
It may not always be quite convenient to impress dependent 
communities with such an idea. 

49. We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by 

20 the necessity of things, the judge. It is true. Sir. But I con- 
fess that the character of judge in my own cause is a thing 
that frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I am ex- 
ceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, 
assured, judicial confidence, until I find myself in something 

25 more like a judicial character. I must have these hesitations 
as long as I am compelled to recollect that, in my little read- 
ing upon such contests as these, the sense of mankind has at 
least as often decided against the superior as the subordinate 
power. Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my having 

30 some abstract right in my favor would not put me much at my 
ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that there 
were no rights which, in their exercise under certain circum- 
stances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most 
vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these considerations have great 



BURKE 



37 



weight with me when I find things so circumstanced, that I 
see the same party at once a civil Htigant against me in point 
of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as a criminal judge 
on acts of his whose moral quality is to be decided upon the 
merits of that very litigation. Men are every now and then put, 5 
by the complexity of human affairs, into strange situations ; but 
justice is the same, let the judge be in what situation he will. 

50. In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. 
What is it we have got by all our menaces, which have been 
many and ferocious? What advantage have we derived from 10 
the penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have 
been severe and numerous? What advances have we made 
towards our object by the sending of a force which, by land 
and sea, is no contemptible strength ? Has the disorder abated ? 
Nothing less. When I see things in this situation after such 15 
confident hopes, bold promises, and active exertions, I can- 
not, for my life, avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is not 
correctly right. 

51. If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of 
American liberty be for the greater part, or rather entirely, 20 
impracticable ; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable 
— or, if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient ; 
what way yet remains? No way is open but the third and 
last, — to comply with the American spirit as necessary ; or, 

if you please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. 25 

52. If we adopt this mode, — if we mean to conciliate and 
concede, — let us see of what nature the concession ought to 
be. To ascertain the nature of our concession, we must look 
at their complaint. The colonies complain that they have not 
the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They 30 
complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in which they 
are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you 
must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If you mean 

to please any people you must give them the boon which they 



38 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

ask ; not what you may think better for them, but of a kind 
totally different. Such an act may be a wise regulation, but 
it is no concession ; whereas our present theme is the mode 
of giving satisfaction. 
5 53. Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this 
day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the right 
of taxation. Some gentlemen startle — but it is true ; I put it 
totally out of the question. It is less than nothing in my con- 
sideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that 

10 gentlemen of profound learning are fond of displaying it on 
this profound subject. But my consideration is narrow, con- 
fined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do 
not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a 
power excepted and reserved out of the general trust of gov- 

15 ernment, and how far all mankind, in all forms of poHty, are 
entitled to an exercise of that right by the charter of nature ; 
or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily 
involved in the general principle of legislation, and insepa- 
rable from the ordinary supreme power. These are deep ques- 

20 tions, where great names militate against each other, where 
reason is perplexed, and an appeal to authorities only thickens 
the confusion ; for high and reverend authorities lift up their 
heads on both sides, and there is no sure footing in the middle. 
This point is the great 

25 Serbonian bog, 

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 
Where armies whole have sunk. 

I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in 
such respectable company. The question with me is, not 
30 whether you have a right to render your people miserable, 
but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is 
not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, rea- 
son, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act the 



BURKE 



39 



worse for being a generous one ? Is no concession proper but 
that which is made from your want of right to keep what 
you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing 
in the exercise of an odious claim because you have your evi- 
dence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms 5 
to enforce them? What signify all those titles, and all those 
arms? Of what avail are they, when the reason of the thing 
tells me that the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit, 
and that I could do nothing but wound myself by the use of 
my own weapons? 10 

54. Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity 
of keeping up the concord of this Empire by an unity of spirit, 
though in a diversity of operations, that, if I were sure the 
colonists had, at their leaving this country, sealed a regular 
compact of servitude; that they had solemnly abjured all the 15 
rights of citizens ; that they had made a vow to renounce all 
ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to all generations ; 
yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to the temper I 
found universally prevalent in my own day, and to govern two 
milHon of men, impatient of servitude, on the principles of 20 
freedom. I am not determining a point of law, I am restoring 
tranquillity; and the general character and situation of a 
people must determine what sort of government is fitted for 
them. That point nothing else can or ought to determine. 

55. My idea, therefore, without considering whether we 25 
yield as matter of right, or grant as matter of favor, is to admit 
the people of our colonies into an interest in the Constitution ; 
and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, 

to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing 
will admit, that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn 30 
declaration of systematic indulgence. 

[Burke here argues that four constitutional precedents — Ire- 
land, Wales, Chester, and Durham — justify his plan of dealing 
with America.] 



40 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

56. My Resolutions therefore mean to establish the equity 
and justice of a taxation of America by grant, and not by im- 
position ; to mark the legal competency of the Colony Assem- 
blies for the support of their government in peace, and for 

5 public aids in time of war ; to acknowledge that this legal 
competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise; and that 
experience has shown the benefit of their grants, and tht futil- 
ity of Parliamentary taxatiofi as a method of supply. 

57. These solid truths compose six fundamental proposi- 
10 tions. There are three more Resolutions corollary to these. 

If you admit the first set, you can hardly reject the others. 
But if you admit the first, I shall be far from soHcitous whether 
you accept or refuse the last. I think these six massive pillars 
will be of strength sufficient to support the temple of British 

15 concord. I have no more doubt than I entertain of my exist- 
ence that, if you admitted these, you would command an im- 
mediate peace, and, with but tolerable future management, 
a lasting obedience in America. I am not arrogant in this 
confident assurance. The propositions are all mere matters of 

20 fact, and if they are such facts as draw irresistible conclusions 
even in the stating, this is the power of truth, and not any 
management of mine. 

[At this point Burke took up seriatim the Resolutions referred 
to, and considered each at some length.] 

58. Here, Sir, I should close; but I plainly perceive some 
objections remain "which I ought, if possible, to remove. The 

25 first will be that, in resorting to the doctrine of our ancestors, 
as contained in the preamble to the Chester Act, I prove too 
much ; that the grievance from a want of representation, stated 
in that preamble, goes to the whole of legislation as well as to 
taxation ; and that the colonies, grounding themselves upon 

30 that doctrine, will apply it to all parts of legislative authority. 

59. To this objection, with all possible deference and hu- 
mility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair the 



BURKE 41 

smallest particle of our supreme authority, I answer, that the 
words are the words of Parliament, and not mine, and that all 
false and inconclusive inferences drawn from them are not 
mine, for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen 
the words of an Act of Parliament which Mr. Grenville, surely 5 
a tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate for the sover- 
eignty of Parliament, formerly moved to have read at your 
table in confirmation of his tenets. It is true that Lord Chat- 
ham considered these preambles as declaring strongly in favor 
of his opinions. He was a no less powerful advocate for the 10 
privileges of the Americans. Ought I not from hence to pre- 
sume that these preambles are as favorable as possible to both, 
when properly understood ; favorable both to the rights of 
Parliament, and to the privilege of the dependencies of this 
Crown? But, Sir, the object of grievance in my Resolution I 15 
have not taken from the Chester, but from the Durham Act, 
which confines the hardship of want of representation to the 
case of subsidies, and which therefore falls in exactly with the 
case of the colonies. But whether the unrepresented counties 
were de jure or de facto bound, the preambles do not accu- 20 
rately distinguish, nor indeed was it necessary ; for, whether de 
jure or de facto^ the Legislature thought the exercise of the 
power of taxing as of right, or as of fact without right, equally 
a grievance, and equally oppressive. 

60. I do not know that the colonies have, in any general 25 
way, or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of 
humanity in relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of the 
temper or dispositions of any man, or any set of men, when 
they are composed and at rest, from their conduct or their 
expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation. It is be- 30 
sides a very great mistake to imagine that mankind follow up 
practically any speculative principle, either of government or 
of freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical illation. 
We Englishmen stop very short of the principles upon which 



42 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

we support any given part of our Constitution, or even the 
whole of it together. I could easily, if I had not already tired 
you, give you very striking and convincing instances of it. 
This is nothing but what is natural and proper. All govern- 
5 ment, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every vir- 
tue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and 
barter. We balance inconveniences ; we give and take ; we 
remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose 
rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. As we 

10 must give away some natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages, 
so we must sacrifice some civil liberties for the advantages to 
be derived from the communion and fellowship of a great 
empire. But, in all fair deaHngs, the thing bought must bear 
some proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter away 

15 the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a great house is apt 
to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the arti- 
ficial importance of a great empire too dear to pay for it all 
essential rights and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature. 
None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall under a 

20 government purely arbitrary. But although there are some 
amongst us who think our Constitution wants many improve- 
ments to make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none 
who are of that opinion would think it right to aim at such 
improvement by disturbing his country, and risking everything 

25 that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise we consider 
what we are to lose, as well as what we are to gain ; and the 
more and better stake of liberty every people possess, the less 
they will hazard in a vain attempt to make it more. These 
are the cords of man. Man acts from adequate motives rela- 

30 tive to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations. 
Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us, and with 
great weight and propriety, against this species of delusive 
geometrical accuracy in moral arguments as the most fallacious 
of all sophistry. 



BURKE 43 

6i. The Americans will have no interest contrary to the 
grandeur and glory of England, when they are not oppressed 
by the weight of it ; and they will rather be inclined to respect 
the acts of a superintending legislature when they see them 
the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the rival, 5 
of their secondary importance. In this assurance my mind 
most perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel not the least 
alarm from the discontents which are to aris"e from putting 
people at their ease, nor do I apprehend the destruction of 
this Empire from giving, by an act of free grace and indul- 10 
gence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens some share of 
those rights upon which I have always been taught to value 
myself. 

62. It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested in 
American Assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the Empire, 15 
which was preserved entire, although Wales, and Chester, and 
Durham were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not know 
what this unity means, nor has it ever been heard of, that I 
know, in the constitutional poHcy of this country. The very 
idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of simple 20 
and undivided unity. England is the head ; but she is not 
the head and the members too. Ireland has ever had from 
the beginning a separate, but not an independent, legislature, 
which, far from distracting, promoted the union of the whole. 
Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed through 25 
both islands for the conservation of English dominion, and 
the communication of English liberties. I do not see that the 
same principles might not be carried into twenty islands and 
with the same good effect. This is my model with regard to 
America, as far as the internal circumstances of the two coun- 30 
tries are the same. I know no other unity of this Empire than 
I can draw from its example during these periods, when it 
seemed to my poor understanding more united than it is now, 
or than it is likely to be by the present methods. 



44 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

63. But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. 
Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, 
to say something of the proposition of the noble lord on the 
floor, which has been so lately received and stands on your 

5 Journals. I must be deeply concerned whenever it is my mis- 
fortune to continue a difference with the majority of this 
House ; but as the reasons for that difference are my apology 
for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very few 
words. I shall compress them into as small a body as I possi- 
10 bly can, having already debated that matter at large when the 
question was before the Committee. 

64. First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ran- 
som by auction ; because it is a mere project. It is a thing 
new, unheard of; supported by no experience ; justified by 

15 no analogy ; without example of our ancestors, or root in the 
Constitution. It is neither regular Parliamentary taxation, 
nor colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili is a good 
rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial of experi- 
ments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, 

20 the peace of this Empire. 

65. Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in 
the end to our Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for 
taxing the colonies in the ante-chamber of the noble lord and 
his successors? To settle the quotas and proportions in this 

25 House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter yourself you 
shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand, 
and knock down to each colony as it bids. But to settle, on 
the plan laid down by the noble lord, the true proportional 
payment for four or five and twenty governments according to 

30 the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and according to 
the British proportion of wealth and burthen, is a wild and 
chimerical notion. This new taxation must therefore come in 
by the back door of the Constitution. Each quota must be 
brought to this House ready formed; you can neither add 



BURKE 45 

nor alter. You must register it. You can do nothing further ; 
for on what grounds can you deliberate either before or after 
the proposition? You cannot hear the counsel for all these 
provinces, quarrelling each on its own quantity of payment, 
and its proportion to others. If you should attempt it, the 5 
Committee of Provincial Ways and Means, or by whatever 
other name it will delight to be called, must swallow up all 
the time of Parliament. 

66. Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint 

of the colonies. They complain that they are taxed without lo 
their consent ; you answer, that you will fix the sum at which 
they shall be taxed. That is, you give them the very grievance 
for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you will leave the 
mode to themselves. I really beg pardon — it gives me pain to 
mention it — but you must be sensible that you will not per- 15 
form this part of the compact. For, suppose the colonies were 
to lay the duties, which furnished their contingent, upon the 
importation of your manufactures, you know you would never 
suffer such a tax to be laid. You know, too, that you would 
not suffer many other modes of taxation ; so that, when you 20 
come to explain yourself, it will be found that you will neither 
leave to themselves the quantum nor the mode, nor indeed 
anything. The whole is delusion from one end to the other. 

67. Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be 
universally accepted, will plunge you into great and inextri- 25 
cable difficulties. In what year of our Lord are the proportions 

of payments to be settled ? To say nothing of the impossibility 
that colony agents should have general powers of taxing the 
colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the 
communication by special messages and orders between these 30 
agents and their constituents, on each variation of the case, 
when the parties come to contend together and to dispute on 
their relative proportions, will be a matter of delay, perplexity, 
and confusion that never can have an end. 



46 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

68. If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is 
the condition of those assemblies who offer, by themselves or 
their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas of their pro- 
portion? The refractory colonies who refuse all composition 
5 will remain taxed only to your old impositions, which, how- 
ever grievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The 
obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed ; the refrac- 
tory remain unburdened. What will you do? Will you lay 
new and heavier taxes by Parliament on the disobedient? 

10 Pray consider in what way you can do it. You are perfectly 
convinced that, in the way of taxing, you can do nothing but 
at the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia that refuses to appear 
at your auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid hand- 
somely for their ransom, and are taxed to your quota, how will 

15 you put these colonies on a par? Will you tax the tobacco of 
Virginia? If you do, you give its death-wound to your English 
revenue at home, and to one of the very greatest articles of 
your own foreign trade. If you tax the import of that rebel- 
lious colony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or 

20 the goods of some other obedient and already well-taxed col- 
ony? Who has said one word on this labyrinth of detail, which 
bewilders you more and more as you enter into it? Who has 
presented, who can present you with a clue to lead you out of 
it? I think. Sir, it is impossible that you should not recollect 

25 that the colony bounds are so implicated in one another — you 
know it by your other experiments in the bill for prohibiting 
the New England fishery — that you can lay no possible re- 
straints on almost any of them which may not be presently 
eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with the guilty, 

30 and burthen those whom, upon every principle, you ought to 
exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America who thinks 
that, without falling into this confusion of all rules of equity 
and policy, you can restrain any single colony, especially Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, the central and most important of them all. 



BURKE 47 

69. Let it also be considered that, either in the present 
confusion you settle a permanent contingent, which will and 
must be trifling, and then you have no effectual revenue ; or 
you change the quota at every exigency, and then on every 
new repartition you will have a new quarrel. 5 

70. Reflect, besides, that when you have fixed a quota for 
every colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual 
payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten years' arrears. You can- 
not issue a Treasury Extent against the failing colony. You 
must make new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, new 10 
acts for dragging men to England for trial. You must send 
out new fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. From this 
day forward the Empire is never to know an hour's tranquil- 
lity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in the bowels of the 
colonies, which one time or other must consume this whole 15 
Empire. I allow indeed that the empire of Germany raises 
her revenue and her troops by quotas and contingents ; but 
the revenue of the empire, and the army of the empire, is the 
worst revenue and the worst army in the world. 

71. Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have 20 
a perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who proposed this 
project of a ransom by auction seems himself to be of that 
opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking the 
union of the colonies than for establishing a revenue. He 
confessed he apprehended that his proposal would not be to 25 
their taste. I say this scheme of disunion seems to be at the 
bottom of the project ; for I will not suspect that the noble 
lord meant nothing but merely to delude the nation by an airy 
phantom which he never intended to realize. But whatever 
his views may be, as I propose the peace and union of the 30 
colonies as the very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord 
with one whose foundation is perpetual discord. 

72. Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and 
simple. The other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This 



48 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

is mild; that harsh. This is found by experience effectual for 
its purposes ; the other is a new project. This is universal ; 
the other calculated for certain colonies only. This is imme- 
diate in its concihatory operation ; the other remote, contin- 
5 gent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the dignity of a 
ruling people — gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as 
a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in propos- 
ing it to you. I have indeed tired you by a long discourse; 
but this is the misfortune of those to whose influence nothing 

10 will be conceded, and who must win every inch of their ground 
by argument. You have heard me with goodness. May you 
decide with wisdom ! For my part, I feel my mind greatly 
disburthened by what I have done to-day. I have been the 
less fearful of trying your patience, because on this subject I 

15 mean to spare it altogether in future. I have this comfort, 
that in every stage of the American affairs I have steadily 
opposed the measures that have produced the confusion, and 
may bring on the destruction, of this Empire. I now go so 
far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace 

20 to my country, I give it to my conscience. 

73. But what, says the financier, is peace to us without 
money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No ! But it does; 
for it secures to the subject the power of refusal, the first of 
all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this 

25 power in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not 
granting at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue 
ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. It does 
not indeed vote you 152,750/. iis. 2^d., nor any other paltry 
limited sum; but it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the 

30 bank — from whence only revenues can arise amongst a people 
sensible of freedom. Posita luditur area. Cannot you, in 
England — cannot you, at this time of day — cannot you, a 
House of Commons, trust to the principle which has raised so 
mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near 140,000,000 



BURKE 49 

in this country? Is this principle to be true in England, and 
false everywhere else? Is it not true in Ireland? Has it not 
hitherto been true in the colonies? Why should you presume 
that, in any country, a body duly constituted for any function 
will neglect to perform its duty and abdicate its trust? Such 5 
a presumption would go against all governments in all modes. 
But, in truth, this dread of penury of supply from a free assem- 
bly has no foundation in nature ; for first, observe that, besides 
the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the 
honor of their own government, that sense of dignity and that 10 
security to property which ever attends freedom has a tend- 
ency to increase the stock of the free community. Most may 
be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or 
climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the 
voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight 15 
of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more copi- 
ous stream of revenue than could be squeezed from the dry 
husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all the politic 
machinery in the world? 

74. Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free coun- 20 
try. We know, too, that the emulations of such parties — their 
contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes and their 
fears — must send them all in their turns to him that holds the 
balance of the State. The parties are the gamesters ; but Gov- 
ernment keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. 25 
When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared 
that the people will be exhausted, than that government will not 
be supplied ; whereas, whatever is got by acts of absolute power 

ill obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill kept, because con- 
strained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious. 30 

Ease would retract 
Vows made in pain, as violent and void. 

75. I, for one, protest against compounding our demands. 
I declare against compounding, for a poor limited sum, the 



50 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

immense, ever-growing, eternal debt which is due to generous 
government from protected freedom. And so may I speed in 
the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only 
be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the 
5 world, to compel the colonies to a sum certain, either in the 
way of ransom or in the way of compulsory compact. 

76. But to clear up my ideas on this subject: a revenue 
from America transmitted hither — do not delude yourselves 
— you never can receive it; no, not a shilling. We have ex- 

10 perience that from remote countries it is not to be expected. 
If, when you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you 
were obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposi- 
tion, what can you expect from North America ? For certainly, 
if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is 

1 5 India ; or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the East 
India Company. America has none of these aptitudes. If 
America gives you taxable objects on which you lay your 
duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a 
foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these 

20 objects which you tax at home, she has performed her part to 
the British revenue. But with regard to her own internal 
establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in 
moderation. I say in moderation, for she ought not to be per- 
mitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a war, 

25 the weight of which, with the enemies that we are most likely 
to have, must be considerable in her quarter of the globe. 
There she may serve you, and serve you essentially. 

77. For that service — for all service, whether of revenue, 
trade, or empire — my trust is in her interest in the British 

30 Constitution. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection 
which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from 
similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, 
though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the 
colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights associated 

35 with your government, — they will cling and grapple to you, 



BURKE 51 

and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from 
their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your gov- 
ernment may be one thing, and their privileges another, that 
these two things may exist without any mutual relation, the 
cement is gone — the cohesion is loosened — and everything 5 
hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the 
wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the 
sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our 
common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England 
worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The 10 
more they multiply, the more friends you will have ; the more 
ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedi- 
ence. Slavery they can have anywhere — it is a weed that 
grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain ; they may 
have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling 1 5 
of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they 
can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price 
of which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act of 
Navigation which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, 
and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. 20 
Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that 
sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the 
unity of the Empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination 
as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your 
sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form 25 
the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that 
your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspend- 
ing clauses are the things that hold together the great con- 
texture of the mysterious whole. These things do not make 
your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they 30 
are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives all 
their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English 
Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, 
feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, 
even down to the minutest member. 35 



52 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICAN COLONIES 

78. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us 
here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land 
Tax Act which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote 
in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or 

5 that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and 
discipline ? No ! surely no 1 It is the love of the people ; it 
is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the 
deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives 
you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal 
10 obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, 
and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 

79. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chi- 
merical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical 
politicians who have no place among us ; a sort of people who 

15 think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and 
who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the 
great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the 
machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these 
ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men 

20 as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in 
truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is 
not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little 
minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our station, and 
glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situation and 

25 ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on 
America with the old warning of the church, Sursum cor da! 
We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to 
which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the 
dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage 

30 wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most ex- 
tensive and the only honorable conquests — not by destroying, 
but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness, of 
the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have 
got an American empire. English privileges have made it all 

35 that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it can be. 



THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN 
JOSEPH WHITE 

Daniel Webster 

Address to the jury delivered in August, 1830, at the trial 
OF Frank Knapp for the murder of Joseph White 

INTRODUCTION 

Daniel Webster, lawyer, orator, and statesman, was born in 
Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782. His father, a sturdy 
frontiersman, soldier, farmer, member of the legislature, and county 
judge, was always struggling with poverty and always handicapped 
by a sense of the deficiencies of his early education. Living on the 
frontier, Daniel was compelled to depend for his early education 
on his mother and the scanty schooling customary in winter ; and 
for much of this he was indebted to the fact that he was the weak- 
est of the family. When he was fifteen years old a family council 
decided to send him to college. After an imperfect preparation 
he entered Dartmouth College, and was graduated in 1801. He at 
once began the study of law, supporting himself meanwhile, and 
assisting his brother Ezekiel in college, by copying, teaching, and 
other miscellaneous labors. He was admitted to the bar in Boston 
in 1805, from the ofiice of Christopher Gore, and began the prac- 
tice of law at Boscawen, a small town near his home. Two years 
later he moved to Portsmouth. There he soon enjoyed a stimu- 
lating competition and helpful friendship with Jeremiah Mason, at 
that time leader of the New Hampshire bar. Webster's remark- 
able abilities as a lawyer and orator soon brought him recognition. 
In 1 81 3 he took his seat in Congress. During the next few years 
he was building his legal reputation and becoming known in cases 
before the Supreme Court. In 18 16 he moved to Boston, and for 
the succeeding five years devoted himself exclusively to the practice 

53 



54 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

of law. This was a period marked by rapid intellectual growth 
and by the first exhibition of his talents on a large scale. By his 
argument in the famous Dartmouth College Case, in 1818, he estab- 
lished a national reputation as a constitutional lawyer ; and the 
Plymouth oration, in 1820, showed him to be a master in the art 
of occasional oratory. In 1830 came the celebrated "Reply to 
Hayne," whereby he gained his well-earned title of the Expounder 
of the Constitution. 

Webster's fame as a statesman rests on his exposition of the 
idea of nationality. He was not a constructive genius, but did a 
great work in preparing the way for others. His Hayne reply 
put the government in an attitude of preparation, — an attitude 
due to Webster's great and successful argumentation. His " Lib- 
erty and Union " sentiment was reechoed in his last notable 
speech, delivered March 7, 1850, a speech at once the most loudly 
praised and the most strongly censured of any in the history of 
American oratory. " I wish to speak to-day," he said in opening, 
" not as a Massachusetts man, not as a Northern man, but as an 
American." The Union was with him the paramount issue. The 
result is well known. Many of his Northern admirers turned from 
him as a recreant bidding for Southern votes for the presidency. 
The truth of the charge is still a mooted question, but Webster's 
side of the case has no doubt received too little consideration. He 
was still for the Union with a passionate devotion, with an equal 
dislike for the abolitionist and the secessionist, who endangered 
the Union. But his highly developed sense of nationality led him 
to attempt compromise when compromise was no longer possible ; 
the sectional issue was already forced too far for even Webster to 
help avert the dreaded result of "states dissevered, discordant, 
belligerent." 

Webster's one great life purpose was to make the United States 
a nation, — to read nationality into the Constitution and fix it in 
the minds of the people ; in this he succeeded. His one great 
ambition was the presidency; in this he failed. He died at his 
home in Marshfield, Massachusetts, October 24, 1852, disappointed 
at his loss of the nomination for the presidency, for which he had 
long been a logical candidate, but an office which could not have 
added to, and might easily have detracted from, his national fame, 
— a fame resting secure on the record of his invaluable services 
during a peculiarly critical period in our national development. 



WEBSTER 55 

Though critics have differed widely regarding Webster from 
political and ethical standpoints, none have ever questioned his 
right to be ranked among the world's greatest orators. Not inaptly 
may he be called the American Demosthenes, for he had the com- 
bined simplicity and strength of the great Greek, and excelled the 
latter in natural endowments. 

The first thing to be noted regarding Webster's oratory — the 
first thing always noted by those who saw him — is his phys- 
ical equipment. It is necessary for one to understand the mere 
physical influence of the man himself in order to appreciate the 
immediate influence of his speeches. In face, form, and voice, 
nature did her utmost for the "godlike Daniel." Making all due 
allowances for the exaggerations of contemporary hero worship- 
ers, Webster's physique, carriage, and look were so unusual as 
to command unusual attention. When visiting England he was 
pointed out on the streets of Liverpool by an English navvy, who 
said, " There goes a king." And Sydney Smith exclaimed, " Good 
heavens ! he is a small cathedral in himself." Webster was five 
feet ten inches in height, and after reaching maturity weighed a 
little less than two hundred pounds. While these are the propor- 
tions of a large man, they are not unusual, and do not explain why 
he was so often called a " giant." This is rather explained by 
the fact that, as Phillips says of O'Connell, " his presence filled 
the eye." Webster had an unusually large head, his brain being 
one of the three heaviest on record ; straight black hair ; a high, 
broad forehead ; heavy, black, *' beetling " eyebrows ; high cheek 
bones ; a prominent aquiline nose ; a large, firm mouth ; a swarthy 
(copper) complexion ; and, most remarkable of all, large, deep-set 
black eyes, " glowing like anthracite coal." Even in his youth he 
was noted for the " Batchelder eyes " (from his mother, and also 
inherited by Caleb Gushing, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John G. 
Whittier). Webster himself says that as a boy in his native town 
he was called All-Eyes. Attractive in repose, when aroused few 
could withstand his look ; " the dull black eyes under the precipice 
of brows," wrote Carlyle to Emerson, " like dull anthracite furnaces 
needing only to be blo'W7iP 

Webster's voice was in harmony with his physical impressive- 
ness. It had great compass, — was low and musical in conversation, 
in debate high and full, now ringing out like a clarion, and then 
sinking to deep, rich, organlike notes. 



56 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

Withal he had a dignity in carriage and delivery which com- 
ported with these physical attributes. It has been said that his 
fame as an orator rests upon the fact that " he never spoke except 
on great themes." Though this may not be literally true, certain 
it is that there runs through all his speeches a vein of seriousness 
and dignity befitting the subject and the occasion. Speaking usu- 
ally on great themes, he always had the great manner, — sometimes 
pompous and heavy, perhaps, but never any suggestion of the 
" funny man." He never descends to personal abuse. The nearest 
approach to this, perhaps, may be found in his " Reply to Hayne," 
where his elephantine humor and withering sarcasm were used 
with crushing effect ; but these were justified by the nature and 
method of Hayne's attack. 

With such marvelous physical gifts, we should naturally expect 
that the immediate influence of his oratory would be very effect- 
ive, and such was the case. Two or three instances must suffice. 
Mr. Ticknor, a man not disposed by training or habits to indulge 
a facile enthusiasm, after hearing the Plymouth oration wrote to 
a friend : 

" I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. 
Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the 
gush of blood ; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it is 
no connected whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of 
burning eloquence, to which his whole manner gave tenfold force* 
When I came out I was almost afraid to come near him. It 
seemed to me as if he was like the mount that might not be 
touched and that burned with fire." 

The immediate effect of his peroration in the Dartmouth Col- 
lege and Hayne speeches has been so frequently told that it requires 
no repetition here. After the Seventh of March speech (previ- 
ously alluded to) a noted abolitionist leader and bitter opponent 
is reported to have said, " When Webster, speaking of secession, 
asked ' What is to become of me ? ' I was thrilled with a sense 
of some awful impending calamity." Again, while addressing an 
immense audience in Boston, at a time when the Whig party 
thought of dissolution, Webster asked, " If you break up the 
Whig party, where am /to go ? " James Russell Lowell, who was 
in the audience, said, " We held our breath, thinking where he 
could go ; but if he had been five feet three, we should have said, 
' Who cares where you go ? ' " In his Autobiography of Seventy 



WEBSTER 5^ 

Vears, Senator Hoar writes of the time when he first saw Webster, 
June 17, 1843, at the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument : 

" His countenance, his figure, and his manners were all in so 
grand a style that he was, without effort, as superior to his most 
eminent rivals as they were to the humblest. He, alone of all men, 
did not disappoint the eye and the ear, but was a fit figure in the 
landscape. There was the monument and there was Webster ! . . . 
The whole occasion was answered by his presence." 

Favorable as were Webster's natural endowments, they were not 
brought to the perfection he attained without training. The " ora- 
torical instinct" developed early. As a boy he cultivated the art 
of declaiming and reading aloud. We are told how the passing 
teamsters, while they watered their horses, delighted to get " Web- 
ster's boy," with his delicate look and great dark eyes, to come 
out beneath the shade of the trees and read the Bible to them 
with all the force of his childish eloquence. At Exeter Academy 
timidity overcame him and he could not summon courage to de- 
claim. " Many a piece did I commit to memory," he said, " and 
recite and rehearse in my own room, over and over again ; yet 
when the day came on which the school collected to hear decla- 
mations, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to 
my seat, I could not raise myself from it." At college, however, 
he found his voice, and devoted much time to practice in speaking. 
He thus attracted sufficient notice to be invited by the citizens of 
the town of Hanover to deliver a Fourth of July oration. As to 
his manner of speaking in his college days, Senator Lodge writes ^ : 
" He would enter the classroom or debating society and begin in 
a low voice and almost sleepy manner, and would then gradually 
rouse himself like a lion, and pour forth his words until he had 
his hearers completely under his control, and glowing with enthu- 
siasm." This characterization is interesting in that it describes 
Webster more especially as he was in his later days, — a lion that 
needed to be aroused. He was conscious, of course, of his superb 
physical gifts, and as he grew older came to rely on them more 
and more. Though a man with great capacity for work, and often 
devoting himself with intense and protracted application, he was 
phlegmatic in temperament, and his constitutional sluggishness 
naturally increased as he grew older, until a direct stimulus was 
needed to make him exert himself. " In his latter days he made 
1 Lodge, Daniel ^^^j/^r (American Statesman Series), p. 19. 



58 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

many careless and dull speeches, and carried them through by the 
power of his look and manner, but the time never came when, if 
fairly aroused, he failed to sway the hearts and understandings of 
men by a grand and splendid eloquence. The lion slept very often, 
but it never became safe to rouse him from his slumber." ^ 

So much as to Webster's manner as an orator. The matter and 
style of his speeches open up such a broad subject that only a few 
salient features can be considered. 

And first, the perfection of a style that has come to be known 
as distinctively Websterian came by laborious preparation and 
gradual development. Unlike Phillips and Grady, for example, 
whose first noteworthy speeches were as good as later ones, there 
can be traced in Webster's published speeches a gradual improve- 
ment in logical structure and simplicity of diction, and if some of 
his earlier efforts be included in the comparison, the improvement 
is all the more striking. Webster was a man of slow growth, not 
reaching his highest point until he was nearly fifty years of age. 
He passed through the " Sophomoric " stage of bombast and 
emptiness. His speeches delivered during his college days and 
immediately afterward are, when compared with his really great 
speeches, very florid, inflated, and heavy. In this connection it 
will be interesting to note his own testimony on the formation 
of his literary style and his method of preparing his speeches. In 
reply to questions on these matters at different times and by differ- 
ent persons, he is reported to have said : 

" When I was a young man, a student in college, I delivered a 
Fourth of July oration. A copy of it was given to the press, and 
a review of it appeared. The critic praised parts of the oration as 
vigorous and eloquent, but other parts he criticised severely, say- 
ing they were mere emptiness. I thought this criticism was just, 
and I resolved that whatever should be said of my style, from 
that time forth there should be no emptiness in it. I read such 
English authors as fell in my way, particularly Addison, with great 
care. Besides, I remembered that I had to earn my bread by 
addressing the understandings of common men, — by convincing 
juries, — and that I must use language intelligible to them. You 
will therefore find in my speeches to juries no hard words, no Latin 
phrase. . . . When I was a young man, my style was bombastic 

1 Lodge, Daniel Webster (American Statesman Series), p. 19. 



WEBSTER 59 

and pompous in the extreme, and I determined to correct it, if 
labor could do it. Whether it has been corrected or not, no small 
part of my life has been spent in the attempt. ... I early felt the 
importance of thought. I have rewritten sentence after sentence 
and pondered long upon each alteration. For depend upon it, it 
is with our thoughts as with our persons, their intrinsic value is 
mostly undervalued unless expressed in attractive garb. . . . No 
man who is not inspired can make a good speech without prepa- 
ration ; if there are any of that sort of people, I have never met 
them. My reply to Hayne was based upon full notes that I had 
made for another speech upon the same general subject. If he 
had tried to make a speech to fit my notes, he could not have hit 
it better. The materials for that speech had been lying in my mind 
for eighteen months, though I had never committed my thoughts 
to paper, or arranged them in my memory. As for speaking ' on 
the spur of the moment,' there is no such thing as extemporaneous 
acquisition." 

From the foregoing it appears that Webster took great pains in 
the preparation of his speeches — especially was this true of the 
orations delivered on special occasions — and was a severe critic 
of his own style. The result was a style of which the most strik- 
ing characteristics are massive strength joined with perfect sim- 
plicity ; a preference, as he himself said, for Anglo-Saxon words ; 
short sentences, where required for the most direct and vigorous 
expression of the thought, yet sufficient variety to avoid harshness 
and monotony. 

Some of Webster's critics are fond of comparing him with 
Burke. In the organization of material and, at times, in the Mil- 
tonic grandeur of expression, the comparison holds good. But the 
difference was that one had the very highest order of talent, the 
other had the very highest order of genius. Burke surpasses him 
in genius as he surpasses Burke in the power to make genius 
immediately effective. Webster was the better orator, for he won 
his causes. He never allowed his hearers to lose sight of the main 
issue in a multitude of details. He had not Burke's imagination, 
but his figures of speech rarely violated the canons of good taste. 
As another has said, " Where Webster reasoned, Burke philoso- 
phized ; where Webster was serene, equable, ponderous, dealing 
his blows like an ancient catapult, Burke was clamorous, fiery, 
multitudinous, rushing forward like his own 'whirlwind of cavalry.' 



6o THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

. . . Webster was the Roman temple, stately, solid, massive; 
Burke, the Gothic cathedral, fantastic, aspiring, and many-colored. 
Webster advances, in his heavy logical march and his directness 
of purpose, like a Caesarean legion, close, serried, firm, square ; 
Burke, like an oriental procession, with elephants and trophies, 
and the pomp of banners." 

Unlike many orators of ephemeral fame, and contrary to the 
maxim of Fox, Webster's speeches read well. Many of those on 
contemporary questions are of course dull reading, but not so the 
majority of his speeches. His great efforts in the fields of deliber- 
ative, demonstrative, and forensic oratory have a literary value of 
the highest and most lasting kind, and hold first rank in oratorical 
literature. As Goldwin Smith says,^ " In political oratory it would be 
hard to find anything superior to the Reply to Hayne ; in demon- 
strative oratory, anything superior to the Plymouth oration ; in 
forensic oratory, anything superior to the speech on the murder of 
White." 

Matter and manner both considered, Webster may well be 
viewed as " the perfected fruit of twenty-four centuries of oratorical 
culture." When we consider that for fifty years he practiced all 
branches of oratory and excelled in each ; when we consider the 
mastery shown in the great variety of subjects with which he dealt ; 
when we remember his immediate influence over an audience, and 
the continued influence of those great speeches which are still 
read and studied as literary masterpieces, — we must conclude that, 
measured by absolute standards, so far as such standards can be 
fixed, he was the greatest orator of modern times, and holds his 
own in comparison with the ancients. 

While Webster is perhaps best known as an orator and states- 
man, his record as a lawyer would alone have gained him a national 
reputation. Though not a maker of law as were Mansfield or 
Marshall, he had a wide, sure, and ready knowledge of both prin- 
ciples and cases. As an advocate he had " a quick apprehension, 
an unerring sagacity for vital and essential points, a perfect sense 
of proportion, an almost unequaled power of statement, backed 
by reasoning at once close and lucid." It was fortunate for Webster 
that he early came in contact with one of the greatest masters of the 

1 Nineteenth Century^ Vol. XXIV, p. 262.' 



WEBSTER 6l 

common law this country has ever produced, Jeremiah Mason. It 
has been said that Mason educated Webster into a lawyer by 
opposing him. Of all men who ever appeared before a jury Mason 
was the most terrible enemy of florid rhetoric. Six feet and seven 
inches high, and corpulent in proportion, he stood, while he was 
arguing a case, "quite near to the jury," says Webster, — "so 
near that he might have laid his finger on the foreman's nose ; and 
then he talked to them in a plain conversational way, in short sen- 
tences, and using no word that was not level to the comprehension 
of the least educated man on the panel. This led me," he adds, 
" to examine my own style, and I set about reforming it altogether." 
The pupil, however, in time outstripped his master. To Mason's 
severe logic and plain statement, Webster added the pei'stiasive 
element in his speeches to courts and juries. The most notable 
instance of this is his argument in the Dartmouth College Case. 
In addition to the exhaustive citation of authorities by which the 
reasoning was sustained, he so infused emotion into his reasoning 
that it had its effect even on the judges of our Supreme Court, — 
as was. evidenced again in the argument of Joseph H. Choate in 
the Income Tax Case of 1890. 

As an example of a jury address, the speech that follows has 
long been considered a model of its kind. The judicial attitude 
whereby Webster constitutes himself the thirteenth juryman ; the 
avoidance of the overstatement of his own case or understatement 
of his opponent's case ; the logical structure ; the massing, weigh- 
ing, and handling of the circumstantial and direct evidence ; the 
skillful bridging of wide gaps in the testimony ; and the eloquent 
concluding appeal, make this a speech unsurpassed in forensic 
oratory. 

As to the circumstances which gave rise to this speech, the 
following account of the case, condensed from that given in Vol- 
ume I of Webster's Works^ will assist the reader to a better under- 
standing of the argument: 

On the morning of April 7, 1830, Captain Joseph White, a 
retired wealthy merchant eighty-two years of age, was found mur- 
dered in his bed in his mansion house at Salem, Massachusetts. 
The murder was first discovered by Mr. White's manservant. He 
and the maidservant were the only persons who slept in the house 
that night, except Mr. White himself, whose niece, Mrs, Beckford, 



62 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

his housekeeper, was then absent on a visit to her daughter at 
Wenham. 

The physicians and the coroner's jury, who were called to exam- 
ine the body, found on it thirteen deep stabs, made as if by a 
sharp dirk or poniard, and the appearance of a heavy blow on 
the left temple, which had fractured the skull but not broken the 
skin. The body was cold and appeared to have been lifeless many 
hours. 

On examining the apartments of the house, it did not appear 
that any valuable articles had been taken or the house ransacked 
for them ; there was a rottleait of doubloons in an iron chest in 
his chamber, and costly plate in other apartments, none of which 
was missing. 

Large rewards for the detection of the murderers were offered 
by the heirs of the deceased, by the selectmen of the town, and 
by the governor of the state. The citizens held a public meeting, 
and appointed a Committee of Vigilance, of twenty-seven members, 
to make all possible exertions to ferret out the offenders. 

Meantime it was announced that a bold attempt at highway 
robbery was made in Wenham, by three footpads, on Joseph and 
Frank Knapp, on the evening of the 27th of April, while they 
were returning in a chaise from Salem to their residence in Wen- 
ham. They appeared before the investigating committee and tes- 
tified to the attack. 

Not the slightest clew to the murder could be found for several 
weeks, and the mystery seemed to be impenetrable. At length a 
prisoner in the jail at New Bedford, seventy miles from Salem, 
intimated that he could make important disclosures. A confiden- 
tial messenger was immediately sent to ascertain what he knew 
on the subject. The prisoner's name was Hatch ; he had been 
committed before the murder. He stated that, some months before 
the murder, he had associated in Salem with Richard Crownin- 
shield, Jr., of Danvers, and had often heard Crowninshield express 
his intention to destroy the life of Mr. White. 

The disclosures of Hatch received credit. When the Supreme 
Court met at Ipswich the Attorney-General, Morton, moved for a 
writ of habeas corpus ad testif.^ and Hatch was carried in chains 
from New Bedford before the grand jury, and on his testimony 
an indictment was found against Crowninshield. Other witnesses 
testified that on the night of the murder his brother, George 



WEBSTER 63 

Crowninshield, Colonel Benjamin Sclman of Marblehead, and 
Daniel Chase of Lynn were together in Salem at a gambling 
house usually frequented by Richard ; these were indicted as 
accomplices in the crime. They were all arrested on the 2d of 
May, arraigned on the indictment, and committed to prison to 
await the sitting of a court that should have jurisdiction of the 
offense. 

A fortnight afterwards Captain Joseph J. Knapp, a shipmaster 
and merchant, a man of good character, received by mail a letter 
signed " Charles Grant, Jr.," demanding a large sum of money and 
threatening to make ruinous disclosures if the money were not 
forthcoming at once. This letter was an enigma to Captain Knapp ; 
he knew no man of the name of Charles Grant, Jr., and had no 
acquaintance at Belfast, a town in Maine two hundred miles dis- 
tant from Salem. After poring over it in vain, he handed it to his 
son, Phippen Knapp, a young lawyer ; to him also the letter was 
inexplicable. Captain Knapp and his son Phippen therefore con- 
cluded to ride to Wenham, seven miles distant, and show the let- 
ter to Captain Knapp's other two sons, Joseph and Frank, who 
were then residing at Wenham with Mrs. Beckford, the niece and 
late housekeeper of Mr. White, and the mother of the wife of 
Joseph Knapp. The latter perused the letter, told his father it 
" contained a devilish lot of trash," and requested him to hand it 
to the Committee of Vigilance. Captain Knapp, on his return to 
Salem that evening, accordingly delivered the letter to the chair- 
man of the Committee. 

The next day Joseph Knapp went to Salem and requested one 
of his friends to drop into the Salem post office two pseudony- 
mous letters, addressed to the Vigilance Committee and to Stephen 
White (a nephew of Joseph White and his principal legatee) and 
signed "Grant" and " N. Claxton, 4th," respectively. When Knapp 
delivered these letters to his friend, he said, " My father has re- 
ceived an anonymous letter, and what I want you for is to put 
these in the post office in order to nip this silly affair in the bud." 

When the Committee of Vigilance read and considered the letter 
purporting to be signed by Charles Grant, Jr., which had been 
delivered to them by Captain Knapp, they immediately dispatched 
a discreet messenger to Belfast, in Maine ; he explained his 
business confidentially to the postmaster there, deposited a letter 
addressed to Charles Grant, Jr., and awaited the call of Grant to 



64 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

receive it. He soon called for it, when an officer stationed in the 
house stepped forward and arrested Grant. On examining him, it 
appeared that his true name was Palmer. While he protested his 
own innocence, he disclosed that he had been an associate of 
Richard Crowninshield, Jr., and George Crowninshield ; that he had 
spent part of the winter at Danvers and Salem, under the name of 
Carr ; that part of the time he had been their guest, concealed in their 
father's house in Danvers ; that on the 2d of April he saw from 
the windows of the house Frank Knapp and a young man named 
Allen ride up to the house ; that George walked away with Frank, 
and Richard with Allen ; that on their return George told Richard 
that Frank wished them to undertake to kill Mr. White, and that 
Joseph Knapp would pay one thousand dollars for the job ; that they 
proposed various modes of executing it, and asked Palmer to be 
concerned, which he declined ; that George said the housekeeper 
would be away at the time ; that the object of Joseph Knapp was 
to destroy the will, because it gave most of the property to Stephen 
White ; that Joseph Knapp was first to destroy the will ; that he 
could get from the housekeeper the keys of the iron chest in which 
it was kept; that Frank called again the same day, in a chaise, 
and rode away with Richard ; and that on the night of the murder 
Palmer stayed at the Halfway House in Lynn. 

A warrant was issued at once against Joseph Knapp and Frank 
Knapp, and they were taken into custody and imprisoned to await 
the arrival of Palmer for their examination. 

Joseph Knapp, on the third day of his imprisonment, made a 
full confession that he projected the murder. He knew that Mr. 
White had made his will and given to Mrs. Beckford, Knapp's 
mother-in-law, a legacy of fifteen thousand dollars, but supposed 
that if he died without leaving a will, she would inherit nearly two 
hundred thousand dollars. He corroborated all that Palmer had 
said, and gave full details of the crime. He further confessed 
that the account of the Wenham robbery, on the 27th of April, 
was a sheer fabrication. 

Palmer was brought to Salem in irons and committed to prison. 
Richard Crowninshield saw him taken from the carriage, and thus 
finding the proofs of his guilt and depravity thicken, committed 
suicide by hanging himself to the bars of his cell. He left letters 
to his father and brother expressing in general terms the vicious- 
ness of his life and his hopelessness of escape from punishment. 



WEBSTER 65 

A special term of the Supreme Court was held at Salem on the 
20th of July for the trial of the prisoners charged with the mur- 
der ; it continued in session till the 20th of August, with a few 
days' intermission. An indictment for the murder was found 
against Frank Knapp as principal, and Joseph Knapp and George 
Crowninshield as accessories. 

The principal, Frank Knapp, was first put on trial. An acces- 
sory in a murder could not be tried until a principal had been con- 
victed. He was defended by advocates of high reputation for 
ability and eloquence; the trial was long and arduous, and the 
witnesses numerous. His brother Joseph, who had made a full 
confession, on the government's promise of immunity if he would 
in good faith testify the truth, was brought into court, called to 
the stand as a witness, but declined to testify. To convict the 
prisoner it was necessary for the government to prove that he 
was present^ actually or constructively, as an aider or abettor in 
the murder. The evidence was strong that there was a conspiracy 
to commit the murder, that the prisoner was one of the conspira- 
tors, that at the time of the murder he was in Brown Street at the 
rear of Mr. White's garden ; and the jury were satisfied that he 
was in that place to aid and abet in the murder, ready to afford 
assistance if necessary. He was convicted. Joseph Knapp was 
afterwards tried as an accessory before the fact and convicted. 
George Crowninshield proved an alibi and was discharged. The 
execution of the Knapp brothers closed the tragedy. 

It may be added that the crime itself was committed under a 
misapprehension, Joseph Knapp having erroneously been informed 
that if Captain White died intestate Mrs. Beckford, Knapp's mother- 
in-law, would inherit half the estate. It also appears that although 
a will was abstracted, another and subsequent will was found among 
the murdered man's effects. 

At the trial of Frank Knapp, Franklin Dexter, Esq., addressed the 
jury on behalf of the prisoner, and Webster replied in the following 
speech. 

I. I am little accustomed, Gentlemen, to the part which I 
am now attempting to perform. Hardly more than once or 
twice has it happened to me to be concerned on the side of the 
government in any criminal prosecution whatever ; and never, 
until the present occasion, in any case affecting life. 



66 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

2. But I very much regret that it should have been thought 
necessary to suggest to you that I am brought here to " hurry 
you against the law and beyond the evidence." I hope I have 
too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own 
5 character, to attempt either ; and were I to make such attempt, 
I am sure that in this court nothing can be carried against the 
law, and that gentlemen, intelligent and just as you are, are 
not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though 
I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt 

lo at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, when it is 
supposed that I may be in some degree useful in investigating 
and discovering the truth respecting this most extraordinary 
murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent on me, as on 
every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to 

15 light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at 
the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. 
I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do 
not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punish- 
ment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, 

20 how great soever it m^y be, which is cast on those who feel 
and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in 
planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assas- 
sination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime 
at the bar of public justice. 

25 3. Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some re- 
spects, it has hardly a precedent anywhere ; certainly none in 
our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no 
suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were 
not surprised by any lionlike temptation springing upon their 

30 virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor 
did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long- 
settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money- 
making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." 
It was the weighing of money against life ; the counting 



WEBSTER 67 

out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of 
blood. 

4. An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own 
house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly 
murder, for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters 5 
and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of mur- 
der, if he will show it as it has been exhibited, where such 
example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom 

of our New England society, let him not give it the grim 
visage' of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black 10 
with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires 
of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, 
bloodless demon ; a picture in repose, rather than in action ; 
not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and 
in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend, in the 15 
ordinary display and development of his character. 

5 . The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and 
steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. 
The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the 
whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined 20 
victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to 
whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night 
held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin 
enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoc- 
cupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely 25 
hall, half lighted by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the 
stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves 
the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its 
hinges without noise ; and he enters, and beholds his victim 
before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission 30 
of light. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the 
murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks 

of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow 
is given ! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, 



68 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assas- 
sin's purpose to make sure work ; and he plies the dagger, though 
it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the 
bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in 
5 his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of 
the poniard ! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the 
pulse ! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer ! 
It is accompHshed. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces 
his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, 

10 and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, 
no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe ! 

6. Ah ! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret 
can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither 
nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is 

15 safe. Not to speak of that eye which pierces through all dis- 
guises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, 
such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by 
men. True it is, generally speaking, that " murder will out." 
True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern 

20 things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shed- 
ding man's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Espe- 
cially in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery 
must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes 
turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circum- 

25 stance, connected with the time and place ; a thousand ears 
catch every whisper ; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell 
on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the 
slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the 
guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself ; or 

30 rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true 
to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not 
what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the 
residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by 
a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A 



WEBSTER 69 

vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assist- 
ance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the mur- 
derer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like the evil 
spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him 
whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising 5 
to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole 
world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears 
its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has be- 
come his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his 
courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from with- 10 
out begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to en- 
tangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence 
to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed ; 
there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is 
confession. 15 

7. Much has been said, on this occasion, of the excitement 
which has existed, and still exists, and of the extraordinary 
measures taken to discover and punish the guilty. No doubt 
there has been, and is, much excitement, and strange indeed it 
would be had it been otherwise. Should not all the peaceable 20 
and well-disposed naturally feel concerned, and naturally exert 
themselves to bring to punishment the authors of this secret 
assassination? Was it a thing to be slept upon or forgotten? 
Did you. Gentlemen, sleep quite as quietly in your beds after 
this murder as before? Was it not a case for rewards, for 25 
meetings, for committees, for the united efforts of all the good, 

to find out a band of murderous conspirators, of midnight ruf- 
fians, and to bring them to the bar of justice and law? If this 
be excitement, is it an unnatural or an improper excitement? 

8. It seems to me. Gentlemen, that there are appearances of 30 
another feeling, of a very different nature and character ; not 
very extensive, I would hope, but still there is too much evidence 

of its existence. Such is human nature, that some persons lose 
their abhorrence of crime in their admiration of its magnificent 



70 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

exhibitions. Ordinary vice is reprobated by them, but extraor- 
dinary guilt, exquisite wickedness, the high flights and poetry 
of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead them to forget the 
depths of the guilt, in admiration of the excellence of the per- 
5 formance, or the unequalled atrocity of the purpose. There are 
those in our day who have made great use of this infirmity 
of our nature, and by means of it done infinite injury to the 
cause of good morals. They have affected not only the taste, 
but I fear also the principles, of the young, the heedless, and 

10 the imaginative, by the exhibition of interesting and beautiful 
monsters. They render depravity attractive, sometimes by the 
poHsh of its manners, and sometimes by its very extravagance, 
and study to show off crime under all the advantages of clever- 
ness and dexterity. Gentlemen, this is an extraordinary murder, 

15 but it is still a murder. We are not to lose ourselves in wonder 
at its origin, or in gazing on its cool and skillful execution. We 
are to detect and punish it ; and while we proceed with cau- 
tion against the prisoner, and are to be sure that we do not 
visit on his head the offenses of others, we are yet to consider 

20 that we are dealing with a case of most atrocious crime, which 
has not the slightest circumstance about it to soften its enor- 
mity. It is murder ; deliberate, concerted, malicious murder. 

9. Although the interest of this case may have diminished 
by the repeated investigation of the facts, still the additional 

25 labor which it imposes upon all concerned is not to be re- 
gretted if it should result in removing all doubts of the guilt 
of the prisoner. 

10. The learned counsel for the prisoner has said truly that 
it is your individual duty to judge the prisoner ; that it is your 

30 individual duty to determine his guilt or innocence ; and that 
you are to weigh the testimony with candor and fairness. But 
much at the same time has been said, which, although it would 
seem to have no distinct bearing on the trial, cannot be passed 
over without some notice. 



WEBSTER 71 

1 1 . A tone of complaint so peculiar has been indulged as 
would almost lead us to doubt whether the prisoner at the bar, 
or the managers of this prosecution, are now on trial. Great 
pains have been taken to complain of the manner of the prose- 
cution. We hear of getting up a case ; of setting in motion 5 
trains of machinery ; of foul testimony ; of combinations to 
overwhelm the prisoner ; of private prosecutors ; that the pris- 
oner is hunted, persecuted, driven to his trial ; that everybody 

is against him ; and various other complaints, as if those who 
would bring to punishment the authors of this murder were 10 
almost as bad as they who committed it. 

12. In the course of my whole life, I have never heard before 
so much said about the particular counsel who happen to 
be employed ; as if it were extraordinary that other counsel 
than the usual officers of the government should assist in the 15 
management of a case on the part of the government. In 
one of the last criminal trials in this county, that of Jack- 
man for the *' Goodridge robbery" (so called), I remember 
that the learned head of the Suffolk Bar, Mr. Prescott, came 
down in aid of the officers of the government. This was 20 
regarded as neither strange nor improper. The counsel for 
the prisoner, in that case, contented themselves with answer- 
ing his arguments, as far as they were able, instead of carping 

at his presence. 

13. Complaint is made that rewards were offered in this 25 
case, and temptations held out to obtain testimony. Are not 
rewards always offered when great and secret offenses are 
committed ? Rewards were offered in the case to which I have 
alluded ; and every other means taken to discover the offenders 
that ingenuity or the most persevering vigilance could suggest. 30 
The learned counsel have suft'ered their zeal to lead them into 

a strain of complaint at the manner in which the perpetrators of 
this crime were detected, almost indicating that they regard 
it as a positive injury to them to have found out their guilt. 



72 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

Since no man witnessed it, since they do not now confess it, 
attempts to discover it are half esteemed as ofificious inter- 
meddling and impertinent inquiry. 

14. It is said, that here even a Committee of Vigilance was 

5 appointed. This is a subject of reiterated remark. This com- 
mittee are pointed at, as though they had been officiously in- 
termeddling with the administration of justice. They are said 
to have been "laboring for months" against the prisoner. 
Gentlemen, what must we do in such a case? Are people to 

10 be dumb and still, through fear of overdoing? Is it come to 
this, that an effort cannot be made, a hand cannot be lifted, 
to discover the guilty, without its being said there is a com- 
bination to overwhelm innocence? Has the community lost 
all moral sense? Certainly, a community that would not be 

15 roused to action upon an occasion such as this was, a com- 
munity which should not deny sleep to their eyes and slumber 
to their eyelids till they had exhausted all the means of dis- 
covery and detection, must indeed be lost to all moral sense, 
and would scarcely deserve protection from the laws. The 

20 learned counsel have endeavored to persuade you, that there 
exists a prejudice against the persons accused of this murder. 
They would have you understand that it is not confined to this 
vicinity alone ; but that even the legislature have caught this 
spirit; that through the procurement of the gentleman here 

25 styled private prosecutor, who is a member of the Senate, a 
special session of this court was appointed for the trial of these 
ofifenders ; that the ordinary movements of the wheels of 
justice were too slow for the purposes devised. But does not 
everybody see and know that it was matter of absolute neces- 

30 sity to have a special session of the court? When or how 
could the prisoners have been tried without a special session? 
In the ordinary arrangement of the courts, but one week in a 
year is allotted for the whole court to sit in this county. In 
the trial of all capital offenses a majority of the court, at least, 



WEBSTER ' 73 

is required to be present. In the trial of the present case 
alone, three weeks have already been taken up. Without such 
special session, then, three years would not have been suffi- 
cient for the purpose. It is answer sufficient to all complaints 
on this subject to say that the law was drawn by the late 5 
Chief Justice himself, to enable the court to accomplish its 
duties, and to afford the persons accused an opportunity for 
trial without delay. 

1 5 . Again, it is said that it was not thought of making Frank 
Knapp, the prisoner at the bar, a principal till after the death 10 
of Richard Crowninshield, Jr. ; that the present indictment is 
an afterthought ; that " testimony was got up " for the occasion. 

It is not so. There is no authority for this suggestion. The 
case of the Knapps had not then been before the grand jury. 
The officers of the government did not know what the tes- 15 
timony would be against them. They could not, therefore, 
have determined what course they should pursue. They in- 
tended to arraign all as principals who should appear to have 
been principals, and all as accessories who should appear to 
have been accessories. All this could be known only when the 20 
evidence should be produced. 

16. But the learned counsel for the defendant take a some- 
what loftier flight still. They are more concerned, they assure 
us, for the law itself, than even for their chent. Your decision 

in this case, they say, will stand as a precedent. Gentlemen, we 25 
hope it will. We hope it will be a precedent both of candor 
and intelligence, of fairness and of firmness ; a precedent of 
good sense and honest purpose pursuing their investigation 
discreetly, rejecting loose generalities, exploring all the cir- 
cumstances, weighing each, in search of truth, and embracing 30 
and declaring the truth when found. 

17. It is said that *' laws are made, not for the punishment 
of the guilty, but for the protection of the innocent." This is 
not quite accurate, perhaps, but if so, we hope they will be so 



74 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

administered as to give that protection. But who are the in- 
nocent whom the law would protect? Gentlemen, Joseph 
White was innocent. They are innocent who, having lived 
in the fear of God through the day, wish to sleep in peace 
5 through the night, in their own beds. The law is estabhshed 
that those who live quietly may sleep quietly ; that they who 
do no harm may feel none. The gentleman can think of none 
that are innocent except the prisoner at the bar, not yet con- 
victed. Is a proved conspirator to murder innocent? Are the 

lo Crowninshields and the Knapps innocent? What is inno- 
cence? How deep stained with blood, how reckless in crime, 
how deep in depravity may it be, and yet retain innocence? 
The law is made, if we would speak with entire accuracy, to 
protect the innocent by punishing the guilty. But there are 

15 those innocent out of a court, as well as in ; innocent citizens 
not suspected of crime, as well as innocent prisoners at the bar. 
18. The criminal law is not founded in a principle of ven- 
geance. It does not punish that it may inflict suffering. The 
humanity of the law feels and regrets every pain it causes, 

20 every hour of restraint it imposes, and more deeply still every 
life it forfeits. But it uses evil as the means of preventing 
greater evil. It seeks to deter from crime by the example of 
punishment. This is its true, and only true main object. ' It 
restrains the liberty of the few offenders, that the many who 

25 do not offend may enjoy their liberty. It takes the life of the 
murderer, that other murders may not be committed. The law 
might open the jails, and at once set free all persons accused 
of offenses, and it ought to do so if it could be made certain 
that no other offenses would hereafter be committed ; because 

30 it punishes, not to satisfy any desire to inflict pain, but simply 
to prevent the repetition of crimes. When the guilty, there- 
fore, are not punished, the law has so far failed of its purpose; 
the safety of the innocent is so far endangered. Every unpun- 
ished murder takes away something from the security of every 



WEBSTER 75 

man's life. Whenever a jury, through whimsical and ill-founded 
scruples, suffer the guilty to escape, they make themselves an- 
swerable for the augmented danger of the innocent. 

19. We wish nothing to be strained against this defendant. 
Why, then, all this alarm? Why all this complaint against the 5 
manner in which the crime is discovered? The prisoner's coun- 
sel catch at supposed flaws of evidence, or bad character of 
witnesses, without meeting the case. Do they mean to deny 
the conspiracy? Do they mean to deny that the two Crownin- 
shields and the two Knapps were conspirators? Why do they 10 
rail against Palmer, while they do not disprove, and hardly dis- 
pute, the truth of any one fact sworn to by him? Instead of 
this, it is made matter of sentimentality that Palmer has been 
prevailed upon to betray his bosom companions and to violate 
the sanctity of friendship. Again I ask, Why do they not meet 15 
the case? If the fact is out, why not meet it? Do they mean 
to deny that Captain White is dead ? One would have almost 
supposed even that, from some remarks that have been made. 
Do they mean to deny the conspiracy? Or, admitting a con- 
spiracy, do they mean to deny only that Frank Knapp, the 20 
prisoner at the bar, was abetting in the murder, being present, 
and so deny that he was a principal? If a conspiracy is proved, 
it bears closely upon every subsequent subject of inquiry. Why 
do they not come to the fact? Here the defense is wholly in- 
distinct. The counsel neither take the ground, nor abandon it. 25 
They neither fly, nor light. They hover. But they must come 
to a closer mode of contest. They must meet the facts, and 
either deny or admit them. Had the prisoner at the bar, 
then, a knowledge of this conspiracy or not? This is the ques- 
tion. Instead of laying out their strength in complaining of the 30 
manner in which the deed is discovered, of the extraordinary 
pains taken to bring the prisoner's guilt to light, would it not 
be better to show there was no guilt? Would it not be better 
to show his innocence? They say, and they complain, that 



76 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

the community feel a great desire that he should be punished 
for his crimes. Would it not be better to convince you that he 
has committed no crime? 

20. Gentlemen, let us now come to the case. Your first 
5 inquiry, on the evidence, will be, Was Captain White murdered 

in pursuance of a conspiracy, and was the defendant one of 
this conspiracy? If so, the second inquiry is. Was he so con- 
nected with the murder itself as that he is liable to be convicted 
as 2^ principaU The defendant is indicted as d, principal. If 

10 not guilty as such, you cannot convict him. The indictment 
contains three distinct classes of counts. In the first, he is 
charged as having done the deed with his own hand ; in the 
second, as an aider and abettor to Richard Crowninshield, Jr., 
who did the deed; in the third, as an aider and abettor to 

15 some person unknown. If you beheve him guilty on either of 
these counts, or in either of these ways, you must convict him. 

2 1 . It may be proper to say, as a preliminary remark, that 
there are two extraordinary circumstances attending this trial. 
One is, that Richard Crowninshield, Jr., the supposed imme- 

20 diate perpetrator of the murder, since his arrest, has com- 
mitted suicide. He has gone to answer before a tribunal of 
perfect infallibihty. The other is, that Joseph Knapp, the 
supposed originator and planner of the murder, having once 
made a full disclosure of the facts, under a promise of indem- 

25 nity, is, nevertheless, not now a witness. Notwithstanding his 

disclosure and his promise of indemnity, he now refuses to 

■ testify. He chooses to return to his original state, and now 

stands answerable himself, when the time shall come for his 

trial. These circumstances it is fit you should remember, in 

30 your investigation of the case. 

2 2 . Your decision may affect more than the life of this defend- 
ant. If he be not convicted as principal, no one can be. Nor 
can any one be convicted of a participation in the crime as 
accessory. The Knapps and George Crowninshield will be 



WEBSTER 



77 



again on the community. This shows the importance of the 
duty you have to perform, and serves to remind you of the care 
and wisdom necessary to be exercised in its performance. But 
certainly these considerations do not render the prisoner's guilt 
any clearer, nor enhance the weight of the evidence against 5 
him. No one desires you to regard consequences in that light. 
No one wishes anything to be strained, or too far pressed 
against the prisoner. Still, it is fit you should see the full im- 
portance of the duty which devolves upon you. 

23. And now. Gentlemen, in examining this evidence, let 10 
us begin at the beginning, and see first what we know inde- 
pendent of the disputed testimony. This is a case of circum- 
stantial evidence. And these circumstances, we think, are full 
and satisfactory. The case mainly depends upon them, and it 

is common that offenses of this kind must be proved in this 15 
way. Midnight assassins take no witnesses. The evidence of 
the facts relied on has been somewhat sneeringly denominated, 
by the learned counsel, " circumstantial stuff," but it is not such 
stuff as dreams are made of. Why does he not rend this stuff? 
Why does he not scatter it to the winds? He dismisses it a 20 
little too summarily. It shall be my business to examine this 
stuff, and try its cohesion. 

24. The letter from Palmer at Belfast, is that no more than 
flimsy stuff? The fabricated letters from Knapp to the com- 
mittee and to Mr. White, are they nothing but stuff? The 25 
circumstance, that the housekeeper was away at the time the 
murder was committed, as it was agreed she would be, is that, 
too, a useless piece of the same stuff? The facts, that the key 

of the chamber door was taken out and secreted, that the 
window was unbarred and unbolted, — are these to be so lightly 30 
and so easily disposed of? 

25. It is necessary, Gentlemen, to settle now, at the com- 
mencement, the great question of a conspiracy. If there was 
none, or the defendant was not a party, then there is no 



y^ THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

evidence here to convict him. If there was a conspiracy, and he 
is proved to have been a party, then these two facts have a strong 
bearing on others, and all the great points of inquiry. The 
defendant's counsel take no distinct ground, as I have already 
5 said, on this point, either to admit or to deny. They choose to 
confine themselves to a hypothetical mode of speech. They 
say, supposing there was a conspiracy, 7ion seqiiitur that the 
prisoner is guilty as principal. Be it so. But still, if there 
was a conspiracy, and if he was a conspirator, and helped to 

lo plan the murder, this may shed much light on the evidence 
which goes to charge him with the execution of that plan. 
We mean to make out the conspiracy ; and that the defend- 
ant was a party to it; and then to draw all just inferences 
from these facts. 

15 26. Let me ask your attention, then, in the first place, to 
those appearances, on the morning after the murder, which have 
a tendency to show that it was done in pursuance of a precon- 
certed plan of operation. What are they? A man was found 
murdered in his bed. No stranger had done the deed, no one 

20 unacquainted with the house had done it. It was apparent that 
somebody within had opened, and that somebody without had 
entered. There had obviously and certainly been concert and 
cooperation. The inmates of the house were not alarmed 
when the murder was perpetrated. The assassin had entered 

25 without any riot or any violence. He had found the way pre- 
pared before him. The house had been previously opened. 
The window was unbarred from within, and its fastening un- 
screwed. There was a lock on the door of the chamber in 
which Mr. White slept, but the key was gone. It had been 

30 taken away and secreted. The footsteps of the murderer were 
visible, outdoors, tending toward the window. The plank by 
which he entered the window still remained. The road he pur- 
sued had been thus prepared for him. The victim was slain, 
and the murderer had escaped. Everything indicated that 



WEBSTER 79 

somebody within had cooperated with somebody without. 
Everything proclaimed that some of the inmates, or somebody 
having access to the house, had had a hand in the murder. On 
the face of the circumstances, it was apparent, therefore, that 
this was a premeditated, concerted murder ; that there had 5 
been a conspiracy to commit it. Who, then, were the con- 
spirators? If not now found out, we are still groping in the 
dark, and the whole tragedy is still a mystery. 

27. If the Knapps and the Crowninshields were not the 
conspirators in this murder, then there is a whole set of con- 10 
spirators not yet discovered. Because, independent of the tes- 
timony of Palmer and Leighton, independent of all disputed 
evidence, we know, from uncontroverted facts, that this murder 
was, and must have been, the result of concert and cooperation 
between two or more. We know it was not done without plan 15 
and deliberation ; we see that whoever entered the house, to 
strike the blow, was favored and aided by some one who had 
been previously in the house, without suspicion, and who had 
prepared the way. This is concert, this is cooperation, this 

is conspiracy. If the Knapps and the Crowninshields, then, 20 
were not the conspirators, who were? Joseph Knapp had a 
motive to desire the death of Mr. White, and that motive has 
been shown. 

28. He was connected by marriage with the family of Mr. 
White. His wife was the daughter of Mrs. Beckford, who was 25 
the only child of a sister of the deceased. The deceased was 
more than eighty years old, and had no children. His only 
heirs were nephews and nieces. He was supposed to be pos- 
sessed of a very large fortune, which would have descended, 
by law, to his several nephews and nieces in equal shares ; or, 30 
if there was a will, then according to the will. But as he had 
but two branches of heirs, the children of his brother, Henry 
White, and of Mrs. Beckford, each of these branches, according 

to the common idea, would have shared one half of his property. 



80 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

29. This popular idea is not legally correct. But it is com- 
mon, and very probably was entertained by the parties. Accord- 
ing to this idea, Mrs. Beckford, on Mr. White's death without a 
will, would have been entitled to one half of his ample fortune ; 
5 and Joseph Knapp had married one of her three children. There 
was a will, and this will gave the bulk of the property to others ; 
and we learn from Palmer that one part of the design was to 
destroy the will before the murder was committed. There had 
been a previous will, and that previous will was known or be- 

10 lieved to have been more favorable than the other to the Beck- 
ford family. So that, by destroying the last will, and destroying 
the life of the testator at the same time, either the first and 
more favorable will would be set up, or the deceased would 
have no will, which would be, as was supposed, still more fa- 

15 vorable. But the conspirators not having succeeded in obtain- 
ing and destroying the last will, though they accomplished the 
murder, that will being found in existence and safe, and that 
will bequeathing the mass of the property to others, it seemed 
at the time impossible for Joseph Knapp, as for any one else, 

20 indeed, but the principal devisee, to have any motive which 
should lead to the murder. The key which unlocks the whole 
mystery is the knowledge of the intention of the conspirators 
to steal the will. This is derived from Palmer, and it explains 
all. It solves the whole marvel. It shows the motive which 

25 actuated those against whom there is much evidence, but 
who, without the knowledge of this intention, were not seen 
to have had a motive. This intention is proved, as I have 
said, by Palmer ; and it is so congruous with all the rest of the 
case, it agrees so well with all facts and circumstances, that no 

30 man could well withhold his beHef , though the facts were stated 
by a still less credible witness. If one desirous of opening a 
lock turns over and tries a bunch of keys till he finds one that 
will open it, he naturally supposes he has found the key of that 
lock. So, in explaining circumstances of evidence which are 



WEBSTER 8 1 

apparently irreconcilable or unaccountable, if a fact be sug- 
gested which at once accounts for all, and reconciles all, by 
whomsoever it may be stated, it is still difficult not to believe 
that such fact is the true fact belonging to the case. In this 
respect, Palmer's testimony is singularly confirmed. If it were 5 
false, his ingenuity could not furnish us such clear exposition 
of strange-appearing circumstances. Some truth not before 
known can alone do that. 

30. When we look back, then, to the state of things imme- 
diately on the discovery of the murder, we see that suspicion 10 
would naturally turn at once, not to the heirs at law, but to those 
principally benefited by the will. They, and they alone, would 
be supposed or seem to have a direct object for wishing Mr. 
White's life to be terminated. And, strange as it may seem, 
we find counsel now insisting that, if no apology, it is yet 15 
mitigation of the atrocity of the Knapps' conduct in attempt- 
ing to charge this foul murder on Mr. White, the nephew and 
principal devisee, that public suspicion was already so directed ! 
As if assassination of character were excusable in proportion 

as circumstances may render it easy. Their endeavors, when 20 
they knew they were suspected themselves, to fix the charge 
on others, by foul means and by falsehood, are fair and strong 
proof of their own guilt. But more of that hereafter. 

31. The counsel say that they might safely admit that 
Richard Crowninshield, Jr., was the perpetrator of this mur- 25 
der. But how could they safely admit that? If that were ad- 
mitted, everything else would follow. For why should Richard 
Crowninshield, Jr., kill Mr. White? He was not his heir, nor 
his devisee ; nor was he his enemy. What could be his 
motive? If Richard Crowninshield, Jr., killed Mr. White, he 30 
did it at some one's procurement who himself had a motive. 
And who, having any motive, is shown to have had any inter- 
course with Richard Crowninshield, Jr., but Joseph Knapp, and 
this principally through the agency of the prisoner at the bar? 



82 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

It is the infirmity, the distressing difficulty of the prisoner's 
case, that his counsel cannot and dare not admit what they 
yet cannot disprove, and what all must believe. He who be- 
lieves, on this evidence, that Richard Crowninshield, Jr., was 
5 the immediate murderer, cannot doubt that both the Knapps 
were conspirators in that murder. The counsel, therefore, are 
wrong, I think, in saying they might safely admit this. The 
admission of so important and so connected a fact would render 
it impossible to contend further against the proof of the entire 

lo conspiracy, as we state it. 

32. What, then, was this conspiracy? Joseph Knapp, desir- 
ous of destroying the will, and of taking the life of the de- 
ceased, hired a ruffian, who, with the aid of other ruffians, was 
to enter the house and murder him in his bed. 

15 33. As far back as January this conspiracy began. Endicott 
testifies to a conversation with Joseph Knapp at that time, in 
which Knapp told him that Captain White had made a will, 
and given the principal part of his property to Stephen White. 
When asked how he knew, he said, " Black and white don't 

20 lie." When asked if the will was not locked up, he said, 
"There is such a thing as two keys to the same lock." And 
speaking of the then late illness of Captain White, he said 
that Stephen White would not have been sent for if he had 
been there. 

25 34. Hence it appears that as early as January Knapp had a 
knowledge of the will, and that he had access to it by means 
of false keys. This knowledge of the will, and an intent to 
destroy it, appear also from Palmer's testimony, a fact dis- 
closed to him by the other conspirators. He says that he was 

30 informed of this by the Crown inshields on the 2d of April. 
But then it is said that Palmer is not to be credited ; that by 
his own confession he is a felon ; that he has been in the State 
prison in Maine; and, above all, that he was intimately as- 
sociated with these conspirators themselves. Let us admit 



WEBSTER 83 

these facts. Let us admit him to be as bad as they would rep- 
resent him to be ; still, in law, he is a competent witness. How 
else are the secret designs of the wicked to be proved, but by 
their wicked companions, to whom they have disclosed them ? 
The government does not select its witnesses. The conspira- 5 
tors themselves have chosen Palmer. He was the confidant of 
the prisoners. The fact, however, does not depend on his testi- 
mony alone. It is corroborated by other proof ; and, taken in 
connection with the other circumstances, it has strong proba- 
bility. In regard to the testimony of Palmer, generally, it may 10 
be said that it is less contradicted, in all parts of it, either by 
himself or others, than that of any other material witness, and 
that everything he has told is corroborated by other evidence, 
so far as it is susceptible of confirmation. An attempt has 
been made to impair his testimony, as to his being at the Half- 15 
way House on the night of the murder ; you have seen with 
what success. Mr. Babb is called to contradict him. You 
have seen how little he knows, and even that not certainly ; 
for he himself is proved to have been in an error by supposing 
Palmer to have been at the Halfway House on the evening of 20 
the 9th of April. At that time he is proved to have been at 
Dustin's in Danvers. If, then. Palmer, bad as he is, has dis- 
closed the secrets of the conspiracy, and has told the truth, 
there is no reason why it should not be believed. Truth is 
truth, come whence it may. 25 

35. The facts show that this murder had been long in agita- 
tion ; that it was not a new proposition on the 2d of April ; 
that it had been contemplated for five or six weeks. Richard 
Crowninshield was at Wenham in the latter part of March, as 
testified by Starrett. Frank Knapp was at Danvers in the latter 30 
part of February, as testified by Allen. Richard Crowninshield 
inquired whether Captain Knapp was about home, when at 
Wenham. The probability is, that they would open the case 
to Palmer as a new project. There are other circumstances 



84 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

that show it to have been some weeks in agitation. Palmer's 
testimony as to the transaction on the 2d of April is corrob- 
orated by Allen, and by Osborn's books. He says that Frank 
Knapp came there in the afternoon, and again in the evening. 
5 So the book shows. He says that Captain White had gone out 
to his farm on that day. So others prove. How could this 
fact, or these facts, have been known to Palmer, unless Frank 
Knapp had brought the knowledge? And was it not the spe- 
cial object of this visit to give information of this fact, that they 

10 might meet him and execute their purpose on his return from 
his farm? The letter of Palmer, writteri' at Belfast, bears in- 
trinsic marks of genuineness. It was mailed at Belfast, May 
13th. It states facts that he could not have known, unless his 
testimony be true. This letter was not an after-thought ; it is 

15 a genuine narrative. In fact, it says, "I know the business 
your brother Frank was transacting on the 2d of April." How 
could he have possibly known this, unless he had been there? 
The "one thousand dollars that was to be paid," — where 
could he have obtained this knowledge? The testimony of 

20 Endicott, of Palmer, and these facts, are to be taken together ; 
and they most clearly show that the death of Captain White was 
caused by somebody interested in putting an end to his life. 

36. As to the testimony of Leigh ton, as far as manner of 
testifying goes, he is a bad witness ; but it does not follow from 

25 this that he is not to be believed. There are some strange 
things about him. It is strange that he should make up a 
story against Captain Knapp, the person with whom he lived ; 
that he never voluntarily told anything : all that he has said 
was screwed out of him. But the story could not have been 

30 invented by him ; his character for truth is unimpeached ; and 
he intimated to another witness, soon after the murder hap- 
pened, that he knew something he should not tell. There is 
not the least contradiction in his testimony, though he gives a 
poor account of withholding it. He says that he was extremely 



WEBSTER 85 

botheird by those who questioned him. In the main story that 
he relates, he is entirely consistent with himself. Some things 
are for him, and some against him. Examine the intrinsic 
probability of what he says. See if some allowance is not to 
be made for him on account of his ignorance of things of this 5 
kind. It is said to be extraordinary that he should have heard 
just so much of the conversation, and no more ; that he should 
have heard just what was necessary to be proved, and nothing 
else. Admit that this is extraordinary; still, this does not 
prove it untrue. It is extraordinary that you twelve gentle- 10 
men should be called upon, out of all the men in the county, 
to decide this case ; no one could have foretold this three 
weeks since. It is extraordinary that the first clew to this con- 
spiracy should have been derived from information given by 
the father of the prisoner at bar. And in every case that comes 15 
to trial there are many things extraordinary. The murder 
itself is a most extraordinary one ; but still we do not doubt 
its reality. 

37. It is argued that this conversation between Joseph and 
Frank could not have been as Leighton has testified, because 20 
they had been together for several hours before ; this subject 
must have been uppermost in their minds, whereas this appears 
to have been the commencement of their conversation upon it. 
Now this depends altogether upon the tone and manner of the 
expression ; upon the particular word in the sentence which 25 
was emphatically spoken. If he had said, " When did you see 
Dick, Frank ? " this would not seem to be the beginning of the 
conversation. With what emphasis it was uttered, it is not 
possible to learn ; and therefore nothing can be made of this 
argument. If this boy's testimony stood alone, it should be 30 
received with caution. And the same may be said of the testi- 
mony of Palmer. But they do not stand alone. They furnish 
a clew to numerous other circumstances, which, when known, 
mutually confirm what would have been received with caution 



86 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

without such corroboration. How could Leighton have made 
up this conversation? "When did you see Dick?" "I saw 
him this morning." " When is he going to kill the old man? " 
" I don't know." " Tell him, if he don't do it soon, I won't 
5 pay him." Here is a vast amount in few words. Had he wit 
enough to invent this ? There is nothing so powerful as truth ; 
and often nothing so strange. It is not even suggested that 
the story was made for him. There is nothing so extraordinary 
in the whole matter as it would have been for this ignorant 

10 country boy to invent this story. 

38. The acts of the parties themselves furnish strong pre- 
sumption of their guilt. What was done on the receipt of the 
letter from Maine? This letter was signed by Charles Grant, 
Jr., a person not known to either of the Knapps, nor was it 

15 known to them that any other person beside the Crowninshields 
knew of the conspiracy. This letter fell into the hands of the 
father, when intended for the son. The father carried it to 
Wenham, where both the sons were. They both read it. Fix 
your eye steadily on this part of the circumstantial stuff which 

20 is in the case, and see what can be made of it. This was 
shown to the two brothers on Saturday, the 1 5 th of May. 
Neither of them knew Palmer. And if they had known him, 
they could not have known him to have been the writer of 
this letter. It was mysterious to them how any one at Belfast 

25 could have had knowledge of this affair. Their conscious guilt 
prevented due circumspection. They did not see the bearing 
of its publication. They advised their father to carry it to the 
Committee of Vigilance, and it was so carried. On the Sunday 
following, Joseph began to think there might be something in 

30 it. Perhaps, in the meantime, he had seen one of the Crownin- 
shields. He was apprehensive that they might be suspected ; he 
was anxious to turn attention from their family. What course 
did he adopt to effect this? He addressed one letter, with 
a false name, to Mr. White, and another to the Committee ; 



WEBSTER 87 

and to complete the climax of his folly, he signed the let- 
ter addressed to the Committee, "Grant," the same name as 
that which was signed to the letter received from Belfast. It 
was in the knowledge of the Committee, that no person but 
the Knapps had seen this letter from Belfast; and that no 5 
other person knew its signature. It therefore must have been 
irresistibly plain to them that one of the Knapps was the writer 
of the letter received by the Committee, charging the murder 
on Mr. White. Add to this the fact of its having been dated 
at Lynn, and mailed at Salem four days after it was dated, and 10 
who could doubt respecting it? Have you ever known or read 
of folly equal to this? Can you conceive of crime more odious 
and abominable ? Merely to explain the apparent mysteries of 
the letter from Palmer, they excite the basest suspicions against 
a man, whom, if they were innocent, they had no reason to 15 
believe guilty ; and whom, if they were guilty, they most cer- 
tainly knew to be innocent. Could they have adopted a more 
direct method of exposing their own infamy? The letter to 
the Committee has intrinsic marks of a knowledge of this trans- 
action. It tells the time and the manner in which the murder 20 
w^as committed. Every line speaks the writer's condemnation. 
In attempting to divert attention from his family, and to charge 
the guilt upon another, he indelibly fixes it upon himself. 

39. Joseph Knapp requested Allen to put these letters into 
the post office, because, said he, " I wish to nip this silly affair 25 
in the bud." If this were not the order of an overruling Prov- 
idence, I should say that it was the silliest piece of folly that 
was ever practiced. Mark the destiny of crime. It is ever 
obliged to resort to such subterfuges ; it trembles in the broad 
light ; it betrays itself in seeking concealment. He alone walks 30 
safely who walks uprightly. Who for a moment can read these 
letters and doubt of Joseph Knapp's guilt? The constitution of 
nature is made to inform against him: There is no corner dark 
enough to conceal him. There is no turnpike road broad enough 



88 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

or smooth enough for a man so guilty to walk in without stum- 
bling. Every step proclaims his secret to every passenger. His 
own acts come out to fix his guilt. In attempting to charge 
another with his own crime, he writes his own confession. To 
5 do away the effect of Palmer's letter, signed Grant, he writes 
a letter himself and affixes to it the name of Grant. He writes 
in a disguised hand ; but how could it happen that the same 
Grant should be in Salem that was at Belfast ? This has brought 
the whole thing out. Evidently he did it, because he has 
10 adopted the same style. Evidently he did it, because he speaks 
of the price of blood, and of other circumstances connected 
with the murder, that no one but a conspirator could have 
known. 

40. Palmer says he made a visit to the Crowninshields on 
15 the 9th of April. George then asked him whether he had heard 

of the murder. Richard inquired whether he had heard the 
music at Salem. They said that they were suspected ; that a 
committee had been appointed to search houses ; and that they 
had melted up the dagger the day after the murder, because it 

20 would be a suspicious circumstance to have it found in their 
possession. Now this cominittee was not appointed, in fact, 
until Friday evening. But this proves nothing against Palmer ; 
it does not prove that George did not tell him so ; it only 
proves that he gave a false reason for a fact. They had heard 

25 that they were suspected; how could they have heard this, 
unless it were from the whisperings of their own consciences? 
Surely this rumor was not then public. 

41. About the 27th of April, another attempt was made by 
the Knapps to give a direction to public suspicion. They re- 

30 ported themselves to have been robbed, in passing from Salem 
to Wenham, near Wenham Pond. They came to Salem and 
stated the particulars of the adventure. They described persons, 
their dress, size, and appearance, who had been suspected of the 
murder. They would have it understood that the community 



WEBSTER 89 

was infested by a band of ruffians, and that they themselves 
were the particular objects of their vengeance. Now this 
turns out to be all fictitious, all false. Can you conceive of 
anything more enormous, any wickedness greater, than the cir- 
culation of such reports? than the allegation of crimes, if com- 5 
mitted, capital? If no such crime had been committed, then 
it reacts with double force upon themselves, and goes very far 
to show their guilt. How did they conduct themselves on this 
occasion? Did they make hue and cry? Did they give in- 
formation that they had been assaulted that night at Wenham? 10 
No such thing. They rested quietly that night ; they waited to 
be called on for the particulars of their adventure ; they made 
no attempt to arrest the offenders ; this was not their object. 
They were content to fill the thousand mouths of rumor, to 
spread abroad false reports, to divert the attention of the pub- 15 
lie from themselves ; for they thought every man suspected 
them, because they knew they ought to be suspected. 

42. The manner in which the compensation for this murder 
was paid is a circumstance worthy of consideration. By exam- 
ining the facts and dates, it will satisfactorily appear that Joseph 20 
Knapp paid a sum of money to Richard Crowninshield, in five- 
franc pieces, on the 24th of April. On the 2 ist of April, Joseph 
Knapp received five hundred five-franc pieces as the proceeds 
of an adventure at sea. The remainder of this species of cur- 
rency that came home in the vessel was deposited in a bank 25 
at Salem. On Saturday, the 24th of April, Frank and Richard 
rode to Wenham. They were there with Joseph an hour or 
more, and appeared to be negotiating private business. Richard 
continued in the chaise ; Joseph came to the chaise and con- 
versed with him. These facts are proved by Hart and Leigh- 30 
ton, and by Osborn's books. On Saturday evening, about this 
time, Richard Crowninshield is proved, by Lummus, to have 
been at Wenham, with another person whose appearance cor- 
responds with Frank's. Can any one doubt this being the same 



90 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

evening? What had Richard Crowninshield to do at Wenham, 
with Joseph, unless it were this business? He was there before 
the murder; he was there after the murder; he was there 
clandestinely, unwilling to be seen. If it were not upon this 
5 business, let it be told what it was for. Joseph Knapp could 
explain it; Frank Knapp might explain it. But they do not 
explain it ; and the inference is against them. 

43. Immediately after this, Richard passes five-franc pieces ; 
on the same evening, one to Lummus, five to Palmer ; and near 

10 this time George passes three or four in Salem. Here are nine 
of these pieces passed by them in four days ; this is extraor- 
dinary. It is an unusual currency ; in ordinary business, few 
men would pass nine such pieces in the course of a year. If they 
were not received in this way, why not explain how they came 

15 by them? Money was not so flush in their pockets that they 
could not tell whence it came, if it honestly came there. It is 
extremely important to them to explain whence this money 
came, and they would do it if they could. If, then, the price 
of blood was paid at this time, in the presence and with the 

20 knowledge of this defendant, does not this prove him to have 
been connected with this conspiracy? 

44. Observe, also, the effect on the mind of Richard of 
Palmer's being arrested and committed to prison ; the various 
efforts he makes to discover the fact; the lowering, through 

25 the crevices of the rock, the pencil and paper for him to 
write upon ; the sending two lines of poetry, with the request 
that he would return the corresponding lines; the shrill and 
pecuHar whistle ; the inimitable exclamations of " Palmer 1 
Palmer ! Palmer ! " All these things prove how great was 

30 his alarm ; they corroborate Palmer's story, and tend to estab- 
lish the conspiracy. 

45. Joseph Knapp had a part to act in this matter. He 
must have opened the window, and secreted the key; he had 
free access to every part of the house ; he was accustomed to 



WEBSTER 91 

visit there ; he went in and out at his pleasure ; he could do 
this without being suspected. He is proved to have been there 
the Saturday preceding. 

46. If all these things, taken in connection, do not prove 
that Captain White was murdered in pursuance of a conspir- 5 
acy, then the case is at an end. 

47. Savary's testimony is wholly unexpected. He was called 
for a different purpose. When asked who the person was that 
he saw come out of Captain White's yard between three and 
four o'clock in the morning, he answered, Frank Knapp. It is 10 
not clear that this is not true. There may be many circum- 
stances of importance connected with this, though we believe 
the murder to have been committed between ten and eleven 
o'clock. The letter to Dr. Barstow states it to have been done 
about eleven o'clock; it states it to have been done with a 15 
blow on the head, from a weapon loaded with lead. Here is 
too great a correspondence with the reality not to have some 
meaning in it. Dr. Pierson was always of the opinion that the 
two classes of wounds were made with different instruments, 
and by different hands. It is possible that one class was in- 20 
flicted at one time, and the other at another. It is possible 
that on the last visit the pulse might not have entirely ceased 

to beat, and then the finishing stroke was given. It is said 
that when the body was discovered, some of the wounds wept, 
while the others did not. They may have been inflicted from 25 
mere wantonness. It was known that Captain White was ac- 
customed to keep specie by him in his chamber ; this perhaps 
may explain the last visit. It is proved that this defendant was 
in the habit of retiring to bed, and leaving it afterwards, with- 
out the knowledge of his family; perhaps he did so on this occa- 30 
sion. We see no reason to doubt the fact ; and it does not shake 
our belief that the murder was committed early in the night. 

48. What are the probabilities as to the time of the murder? 
Mr. White was an aged man ; he usually retired to bed at about 



92 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

half-past nine. He slept soundest in the early part of the 
night; usually awoke in the middle and latter part; and his 
habits were perfectly well known. When would persons, with a 
knowledge of these facts, be most likely to approach him? 
5 Most certainly, in the first hour of his sleep. This would be 
the safest time. If seen then going to and from the house, the 
appearance would be least suspicious. The earlier hour would 
then have been most probably selected. 

49. Gentlemen, I shall dwell no longer on the evidence 
10 which tends to prove that there was a conspiracy, and that the 

prisoner was a conspirator. All the circumstances concur to' 
make out this point. Not only Palmer swears to it, in effect, 
and Leighton, but Allen mainly supports Palmer, and Osborn's 
books lend confirmation, so far as possible, from such a source. 

15 Palmer is contradicted in nothing, either by any other witness, 
or any proved circumstance or occurrence. Whatever could 
be expected to support him does support him. All the evi- 
dence clearly manifests, I think, that there was a conspiracy ; 
that it originated with Joseph Knapp ; that defendant became 

20 a party to it, and was one of its conductors, from first to last. 
One of the most powerful circumstances is Palmer's letter from 
Belfast. The amount of this is a direct charge on the Knapps 
of the authorship of this murder. How did they treat this 
charge; like honest men, or like guilty men? We have seen 

25 how it was treated. Joseph Knapp fabricated letters, charging 
another person, and caused them to be put into the post office. 

50. I shall now proceed on the supposition that it is proved 
that there was a conspiracy to murder Mr. White, and that the 
prisoner was party to it. 

30 51. The second and the material inquiry is, Was the prisoner 
present at the murder, aiding and abetting therein? 

.52. This leads to the legal question in the case. What does the 
law mean when it says that, in order to charge him as a princi- 
pal, " he must be present aiding and abetting in the murder"? 



WEBSTER 93 

53. In the language of the late Chief Justice, " It is not re- 
quired that the abettor shall be actually upon the spot when 
the murder is committed, or even in sight of the more immedi- 
ate perpetrator or of the victim, to make him a principal. If he 
be at a distance, cooperating in the act, by watching to pre- 5 
vent relief, or to give an alarm, or to assist his confederate in 
escape, having knowledge of the purpose and object of the 
assassin, this in the eye of the law is being present, aiding and 
abetting, so as to make him a principal in the murder." 

54. " If he be at a distance cooperating." This is not a dis- 10 
tance to be measured by feet or rods ; if the intent to lend aid 
combine with a knowledge that the murder is to be committed, 
and the person so intending be so situate that he can by any 
possibility lend this aid in any manner, then he is present in 
legal contemplation. He need not lend any actual aid; to be 15 
ready to assist is assisting. 

55. There are two sorts of murder; the distinction between 
them it is of essential importance to bear in mind : i. Murder 
in an affray, or upon sudden and unexpected provocation. 

2. Murder secretly, with a deliberate, predetermined intention 20 
to commit the crime. Under the first class, the question usu- 
ally is, whether the offense be murder or manslaughter, in the 
person who commits the deed. Under the second class, it is 
often a question whether others than he who actually did the 
deed, were present, aiding and assisting therein. Offenses of 25 
this kind ordinarily happen when there is nobody present ex- 
cept those who go on the same design. If a riot should happen 
in the courthouse, and one should kill another, this may be 
murder, or it may not, according to the intention with which 
it was done ; which is always matter of fact, to be collected 30 
from the circumstances at the time. But in secret murders, 
premeditated and determined on, there can be no doubt of the 
murderous intention ; there can be no doubt, if a person be 
present, knowing a murder is to be done, of his concurring in 



94 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

the act. His being there is a proof of his intent to aid and 
abet ; else, why is he there ? 

56. It has been contended that proof must be given that 
the person accused did actually afford aid, did lend a hand in 
5 the murder itself ; and without this proof, although he may be 
near by, he may be presumed to be there for an innocent pur- 
pose; he may have crept silently there to hear the news, or 
from mere curiosity to see what was going on. Preposterous, 
absurd ! Such an idea shocks all common sense. A man is 

10 found to be a conspirator to commit a murder ; he has planned 
it; he has assisted in arranging the time, the place, and the 
means ; and he is found in the place, and at the time, and yet 
it is suggested that he might have been there, not for cooper- 
ation and concurrence, but from curiosity ! Such an argument 

15 deserves no answer. It would be difficult to give it one, in 
decorous terms. It is not to be taken for granted that a man 
seeks to accomplish his own purposes ? When he has planned a 
murder, and is present at its execution, is he there to forward or 
to thwart his own design ? is he there to assist, or there to pre- 

20 vent? But "curiosity " ! He may be there from mere "curi- 
osity" ! Curiosity to witness the success of the execution of 
his own plan of murder ! The very walls of a courthouse ought 
not to stand, the plowshare should run through the ground 
it stands on, where such an argument could find toleration. 

25 57. It is not necessary that the abettor should actually lend 
a hand, that he should take a part in the act itself; if he be 
present ready to assist, that is assisting. Some of the doctrines 
advanced would acquit the defendant, though he had gone to 
the bedchamber of the deceased, though he had been standing 

30 by when the assassin gave the blow. This is the argument we 
have heard to-day. 

58. No doubt the law is, that being ready to assist is assist- 
ing, if the party has the power to assist, in case of need. It is 
so stated by Foster, who is a high authority. [Reading the law 



WEBSTER 95 

from the authority cited.] The law does not say where the per- 
son is to go, or how near he is to go, but that he must be where 
he may give assistance, or where the perpetrator may beheve 
that he may be assisted by him. Suppose that he is acquainted 
with the design of the murderer, and has a knowledge of the 5 
time when it is to be carried into effect, and goes out with a 
view to render assistance, if need be ; why, then, even though 
the murderer does not know of this, the person so going out 
will be an abettor in the murder. 

59. It is contended that the prisoner at the bar could not 10 
be a principal, he being in Brown Street, because he could not 
there render assistance ; and you are called upon to determine 
this case, according as you may be of opinion whether Brown 
Street was, or was not, a suitable, convenient, well-chosen place 
to aid in this murder. This is not the true question. The in- 15 
quiry is not whether you would have selected this place in pref- 
erence to all others, or whether you would have selected it at 
all. If the parties chose it, why should we doubt about it? 
How do we know the use they intended to make of it, or the 
kind of aid that he was to afford by being there? The ques- 20 
tion for you to consider is. Did the defendant go into Brown 
Street in aid of this murder? Did he go there by agreement, 
by appointment with the perpetrator? If so, everything else 
follows. The main thing, indeed the only thing, is to inquire 
whether he was in Brown Street by appointment with Richard 25 
Crowninshield. It might be to keep general watch ; to observe 
the lights, and advise as to time of access ; to meet the mur- 
derer on his return, to advise him as to his escape ; to examine 
his clothes, to see if any marks of blood were upon them ; to 
furnish exchange of clothes, or new disguise, if necessary ; to 30 
tell him through what streets he could safely retreat, or whether 
he could deposit the club in the place designed ; or it might be 
without any distinct object, but merely to afford that encour- 
agement which would proceed from Richard Crowninshield's 



96 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

consciousness that he was near. It is of no consequence 
whether, in your opinion, the place was well chosen or not, 
to afford aid ; if it was so chosen, if it was by appointment 
that he was there, it is enough. Suppose Richard Crownin- 
5 shield, when applied to to commit the murder, had said, *' I 
won't do it unless there can be some one near by to favor my 
escape ; I won't go unless you will stay in Brown Street." 
Upon the gentleman's argument, he would not be an aider 
and abettor in the murder, because the place was not well 
10 chosen ; though it is apparent that the being in the place 
chosen was a condition, without which the murder would never 
have happened. 

60. You are to consider the defendant as one in the league, 
in the combination to commit the murder. If he was there by 

15 appointment with the perpetrator, he is an abettor. The con- 
currence of the perpetrator in his being there is proved by the 
previous evidence of the conspiracy. If Richard Crowninshield, 
for any purpose whatsoever, made it a condition of the agree- 
ment that Frank Knapp should stand as backer, then Frank 

20 Knapp was an aider and abettor ; no matter what the aid was, 
or what sort it was, or degree, be it ever so little ; even if it 
were to judge of the hour when it was best to go, or to see when 
the lights were extinguished, or to give an alarm if any one 
approached. Who better calculated to judge of these things 

25 than the murderer himself? and if he so determined them, 
that is sufficient. 

6 1 . Now as to the facts. Frank Knapp knew that the murder 
was that night to be committed ; he was one of the conspira- 
tors, he knew the object, he knew the time. He had that day 

30 been to Wenham to see Joseph, and probably to Danvers to 
see Richard Crowninshield, for he kept his motions secret. 
He had that day hired a horse and chaise of Osborn, and at- 
tempted to conceal the purpose for which it was used ; he had 
intentionally left the place and the price blank on Osbom's 



WEBSTER 97 

books. He went to Wenham by the way of Danvers ; he had 
been told the week before to hasten Dick ; he had seen the 
Crowninshields several times within a few days ; he had a 
saddle horse the Saturday night before ; he had seen Mrs. 
Beckford at Wenham, and knew she would not return that 5 
night. She had not been away before for six weeks, and prob- 
ably would not soon be again. He had just come from Wen- 
ham. Every day, for the week previous, he had visited one 
or another of these conspirators, save Sunday, and then prob- 
ably he saw them in town. When he saw Joseph on the 6th, 10 
Joseph had prepared the house, and would naturally tell him 
of it ; there were constant communications between them ; 
daily and nightly visitation ; too much knowledge of these 
parties and 'this transaction to leave a particle of doubt on 
the mind of any one that Frank Knapp knew, the murder was 15 
to be committed this night. The hour was come, and he knew 
it ; if so, and he was in Brown Street, without explaining why 
he was there, can the jury for a moment doubt whether he was 
there to countenance, aid, or support ; or for curiosity alone ; 
or to learn how the wages of sin and death were earned by the 20 
perpetrator? 

62. The perpetrator would derive courage, and strength, and 
confidence, from the knowledge that one of his associates was 
near by. If he was in Brown Street, he could have been there 
for no other purpose. If there for this purpose, then he was, 25 
in the language of the law, present^ aiding and abetting in the 
murder. 

63. His interest lay in being somewhere else. If he had 
nothing to do with the murder, no part to act, why not stay 

at home? Why should he jeopard his own life, if it was not 30 
agreed that he should be there? He would not voluntarily go 
where the very place would cause him to swing if detected. 
He would not voluntarily assume the place of danger. His 
taking this place proves that he went to give aid. His staying 



98 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

away would have made an alibi. If he had nothing to do 
with the murder, he would be at home, where he could prove 
his alibi. He knew he was in danger, because he was guilty 
of the conspiracy, and, if he had nothing to do, would not 
5 expose himself to suspicion or detection. 

64. Did the prisoner at the bar countenance this murder? 
Did he concur, or did he non-concur, in what the perpetrator 
was about to do ? Would he have tried to shield him ? Would 
he have furnished his cloak for protection? Would he have 

10 pointed out a safe way of retreat? As you would answer these 
questions, so you should answer the general question, whether 
he was there consenting to the murder, or whether he was 
there as a spectator only. 

65. One word more on this presence, called constructive 
15 presence. What aid is to be rendered? Where is the line to 

be drawn between acting and omitting to act? Suppose he 
had .been in the house, suppose he had followed the perpetra- 
tor to the chamber, what could he have done? This was to 
be a murder by stealth ; it was to be a secret assassination. 

20 It was not their purpose to have an open combat ; they were 
to approach their victim unawares, and silently give the fatal 
blow. But if he had been in the chamber, no one can doubt 
that he would have been an abettor; because of his presence, 
and ability to render services, if needed. What service could 

25 he have rendered, if there? Could he have helped him to 
fly? Could he have aided the silence of his movements? 
Could he have facihtated his retreat, on the first alarm? 
Surely, this was a case where there was more of safety in 
TOing alone than with another; where company would only 

30 embarrass. Richard Crowninshield would prefer to go alone. 
He knew his errand too well. His nerves needed no collateral 
support. He was not the man to take with him a trembling 
companion. He would prefer to have his aid at a distance. 
He would not wish to be encumbered by his presence. He 



WEBSTER 99 

would prefer to have him out of the house. He would prefer 
that he should be m Brown Street. But whether m the cham- 
ber, in the house, in the garden, or in the street, whatsoever 
is aiding in actual presence is aiding in constructive presence ; 
anything that is aid in one case is aid in the other. 5 

66. If, then, the aid be anywhere, so as to embolden the 
perpetrator, to afford him hope or confidence in his enterprise, 
it is the same as though the person stood at his elbow with his 
sword drawn. His being there ready to act, with the power to 
act, is what makes him an abettor. 10 

67. What are \k^Q facts in relation to this presence? Frank 
Knapp is proved to have been a conspirator, proved to have 
known that the deed was now to be done. Is it not probable 
that he was in Brown Street to concur in the murder? There 
were four conspirators. It was natural that some one of them 15 
should go with the perpetrator. Richard Crowninshield was to 
be the perpetrator ; he was to give the blow. There is no evi- 
dence of any casting of the parts for the others. The defend- 
ant would probably be the man to take the second part. He 
was fond of exploits, he was accustomed to the use of sword 20 
canes and dirks. If any aid was required, he was the man to 
give it. At least, there is no evidence to the contrary of this. 

68. Aid could not have been received from Joseph Knapp, 
or from George Crowninshield. Joseph Knapp was at Wen- 
ham, and took good care to prove that he was there. George 25 
Crowninshield has proved satisfactorily where he was ; that he 
was in other company, such as it was, until eleven o'clock. 
This narrows the inquiry. This demands of the prisoner to 
show, if he was not in this place, where he was. It calls on 
him loudly to show this, and to show it truly. If he could 30 
show it, he would do it. If he does not tell, and that truly, it 

is against him. The defense of an alibi is a double-edged 
sword. He knew that he was in a situation where he might be 
called upon to account for himself. If he had had no particular 

LOFC 



100 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

appointment or business to attend to, he would have taken 
care to be able so to account. He would have been out of 
town, or in some good company. Has he accounted for him- 
self on that night to your satisfaction? 

5 69. The prisoner has attempted to prove an alibi in two 
ways. In the first place, by four young men with whom he 
says he was in company, on the evening of the murder, from 
seven o'clock till near ten o'clock. This depends upon, the 
certainty of the night. In the second place, by his family, 

10 from ten o'clock afterwards. This depends upon the certainty 
of the time of the night. These two classes of proof have no 
connection with each other. One may be true, and the other 
false ; or they may both be true, or both be false. I shall 
examine this testimony with some attention, because, on a 

15 former trial, it made more impression on the minds of the 
court than on my own mind. I think, when carefully sifted 
and compared, it will be found to have in it more of plausibil- 
ity than reality. 

70. Mr. Page testifies that on the evening of the 6th of April 

20 he was in company with Burchmore, Balch, and Forrester, and 
that he met the defendant about seven o'clock, near the Salem 
Hotel ; that he afterwards met him at Remond's, about nine 
o'clock, and that he was in company with him a considerable 
part of the evening. This young gentleman is a member of 

25 college, and says that he came to town the Saturday evening 
previous ; that he is now able to say that it was the night of 
the murder when he walked with Frank Knapp, from the recol- 
lection of the fact, that he called himself to an account, on the 
morning after the murder, as it is natural for men to do when 

30 an extraordinary occurrence happens. Gentlemen, this kind 
of evidence is not satisfactory ; general impressions as to time 
are not to be relied on. If I were called on to state the par- 
ticular day on which any witness testified in this cause, I could 
not do it. Every man will notice the same thing in his own 



WEBSTER lOI 

mind. There is no one of these young men that could give an 
account of himself for any other day in the month of April. 
They are made to remember the fact, and then they think 
they remember the time. The witness has no means of know- 
ing it was Tuesday rather than any other time. He did not 5 
know it at first ; he could not know it afterwards. He says he 
called himself to an account. This has no more to do with 
the murder than with the man in the moon. Such testimony 
is not worthy to be relied on in any forty-shilling cause. What 
occasion had he to call himself to an account? Did he sup- 10 
pose that he should be suspected? Had he any intimation of 
this conspiracy? 

71. Suppose, Gentlemen, you were either of you asked 
where you were, or what you were doing, on the fifteenth 
day of June ; you could not answer this question without call- 15 
ing to mind some events to make it certain. Just as well may 
you remember on what you dined each day of the year past. 
Time is identical. Its subdivisions are all alike. No man 
knows one day from another, or one hour from another, but 
by some fact connected with it. Days and hours are not visi- 20 
ble to the senses, nor to be apprehended and distinguished by 
the understanding. The flow of time is known only by some- 
thing which marks it; and he who speaks of the date of 
occurrences with nothing to guide his recollection speaks at 
random, and is not to be relied on. This young gentleman 25 
remembers the facts and occurrences ; he knows nothing why 
they should not have happened on the evening of the 6 th ; 
but he knows no more. All the rest is evidently conjecture or 
impression. 

72. Mr. White informs you that he told him he could not 30 
tell what night it was. The first thoughts are all that are val- 
uable in such case. They miss the mark by taking second 
aim. Mr. Balch believes, but is not sure, that he was with 
Frank Knapp on the evening of the murder. He has given 



I02 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

different accounts of the time. He has no means of making it 
certain. All he knows is, that it was some evening before 
Fast-day. But whether Monday, Tuesday, or Saturday, he 
cannot tell. Mr. Burchmore says, to the best of his belief, it 
5 was the evening of the murder. Afterwards he attempts to 
speak positively, from recollecting that he mentioned the cir- 
cumstance to William Pierce, as he went to the Mineral Spring 
on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam 
he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much 

lo worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to recon- 
cile all he has said with any belief in the accuracy of his recol- 
lections. Mr. Forrester does not speak with any certainty as 
to the night ; and it is very certain that he told Mr. Loring 
and others that he did not know what night it was. 

15 73. Now, what does the testimony of these four young men 
amount to? The only circumstance by which they approxi- 
mate to an identifying of the night is, that three of them say 
it was cloudy ; they think, their walk was either on Monday or 
Tuesday evening, and it is admitted that Monday evening was 

20 clear, whence they draw the inference that it must have been 
Tuesday. 

74. But, fortunately, there is one/<7^/ disclosed in their testi- 
mony that settles the question. Balch says, that on the even- 
ing, whenever it was, he saw the prisoner; the prisoner told 

25 him he was going out of town on horseback, for a distance 
of about twenty minutes' drive, and that he was going to get 
a horse at Osborn's. This was about seven o'clock. At about 
nine, Balch says he saw the prisoner again, and was then told 
by him that he had had his ride, and had returned. Now it 

30 appears by Osborn's books, that the prisoner had a saddle-horse 
from his stable, not on Tuesday evening, the night of the mur- 
der, but on the Saturday evening previous. This fixes the time 
about which these young men testify, and is a complete answer 
and refutation of the attempted alibi on Tuesday evening. 



WEBSTER 103 

75. I come now to speak of the testimony adduced by the 
defendant to explain where he was after ten o'clock on the 
night of the murder. This comes chiefly from members of 
the family ; from his father and brothers. 

76. It is agreed that the affidavit of the prisoner should be 5 
received as evidence of what his brother, Samuel H. Knapp, 
would testify if present. Samuel H. Knapp says, that, about 
ten minutes past ten o'clock, his brother, Frank Knapp, on his 
way to bed, opened his chamber door, made some remarks, 
closed the door, and went to his chamber ; and that he did not 10 
hear him leave it afterwards. How is this witness able to fix 
the time at ten minutes past ten? There is no circumstance 
mentioned by which he fixes it. He had been in bed, probably 
asleep, and was aroused from his sleep by the opening of the 
door. Was he in a situation to speak of time with precision? 15 
Could he know, under such circumstances, whether it was ten 
minutes past ten, or ten minutes before eleven, when his 
brother spoke to him? What would be the natural result in 
such a case? But we are not left to conjecture this result. 
We have positive testimony on this point. Mr. Webb tells 20 
you that Samuel told him, on the 8th of June, " that he did 
not know what time his brother Frank came home, and that he 
was not at home when he went to bed." You will consider this 
testimony of Mr. Webb as indorsed upon this affidavit ; and 
with this indorsement upon it, you will give it its due weight. 25 
This statement was made to him after Frank was arrested. 

77. I come to the testimony of the father. I find myself 
incapable of speaking of him or his testimony with severity. 
Unfortunate old man ! Another Lear, in the conduct of his 
children ; another Lear, I apprehend, in the effect of his dis- 30 
tress upon his mind and understanding. He is brought here 

to testify, under circumstances that disarm severity, and call 
loudly for sympathy. Though it is impossible not to see that 
his story cannot be credited, yet I am unable to speak of him 



104 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

otherwise than in sorrow and grief. Unhappy father ! he 
strives to remember, perhaps persuades himself that he does 
remember, that on the evening of the murder he was himself 
at home at ten o'clock. He thinks, or seems to think, that his 
5 son came in at about five minutes past ten. He fancies that he 
remembers his conversation ; he thinks he spoke of bolting the 
door ; he thinks he asked the time of night ; he seems to re- 
member his then going to his bed. Alas ! these are but the 
swimming fancies of an agitated and distressed mind. Alas ! 
lo they are but the dreams of hope, its uncertain lights, flickering 
on the thick darkness of parental distress. Alas ! the miserable 
father knows nothing, in reality, of all these things. 

78. Mr. Shepard says that the first conversation he had with 
Mr. Knapp was soon after the murder, and before the arrest of 

15 his sons. Mr. Knapp says it was after the arrest of his sons. His 
own fears led him to say to Mr. Shepard that his " son Frank 
was at home that night; and so Phippen told him," or "as 
Phippen told him." Mr. Shepard says that he was struck with 
the remark at the time ; that it made an unfavorable impres- 

20 sion on his mind ; he does not tell you what that impression 
was, but when you connect it with the previous inquiry he 
had made, whether Frank had continued to associate with the 
Crowninshields, and recollect that the Crowninshields were then 
known to be suspected of this crime, can you doubt what this 

25 impression was? can you doubt as to the fears he then had? 

79. This poor old man tells you that he was greatly perplexed 
at the time ; that he found himself in embarrassed circum- 
stances ; that on this very night he was engaged in mak- 
ing an assignment of his property to his friend, Mr. Shepard. 

30 If ever charity should furnish a mantle for error, it should be 
here. Imagination cannot picture a more deplorable, distressed 
condition. 

80. The same general remarks may be applied to his conver- 
sation with Mr. Tread well as have been made upon that with 



WEBSTER 105 

Mr. Shepard. He told him that he believed Frank was at 
home about the usual time. In his conversations with either 
of these persons, he did not pretend to know, of his own knowl- 
edge, the time that he came home. He now tells you positively 
that he recollects the time, and that he so told Mr. Shepard. 5 
He is directly contradicted by both these witnesses, as respect- 
able men as Salem affords. 

8 1 . This idea of an alibi is of recent origin. Would Samuel 
Knapp have gone to sea if it were then thought of? His testi- 
mony, if true, was too important to be lost. If there be any 10 
truth in this part of the alibi^ it is so near in point of time that 

it cannot be relied on. The mere variation of half an hour 
would avoid it. The mere variations of different timepieces 
would explain it. 

82. Has the defendant proved where he was on that night? 15 
If you doubt about it, there is an end of it. The burden is 
upon him to satisfy you beyond all reasonable doubt. Osborn's 
books, in connection with what the young men state, are con- 
clusive, I think, on this point. He has not, then, accounted 
for himself ; he has attempted it, and has failed. I pray you 20 
to remember, Gentlemen, that this is a case in which the 
prisoner would, more than any other, be rationally able to ac- 
count for himself on the night of the murder, if he could do so. 
He was in the conspiracy, he knew the murder was then to be 
committed, and if he himself was to have no hand in its actual 25 
execution, he would of course, as a matter of safety and pre- 
caution, be somewhere else, and be able to prove afterwards 
that he had been somewhere else. Having this motive to 
prove himself elsewhere, and the power to do it if he were 
elsewhere, his failing in such proof must necessarily leave a 30 
very strong inference against him. 

83. But, Gentlemen, let us now consider what is the evi- 
dence produced on the part of the government to prove that 
Frank Knapp, the prisoner at the bar, was in Brown Street on 



I06 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

the night of the murder. This is a point of vital importance 
in this cause. Unless this be made out, beyond reasonable 
doubt, the law of presence does not apply to the case. The 
government undertakes to prove that he was present aiding in 
5 the murder, by proving that he was in Brown Street for this 
purpose. Now, what are the undoubted facts ? They are, that 
two persons were seen in that street, several times during that 
evening, under suspicious circumstances; under such circum- 
stances as induced those who saw them to watch their move- 

lo ments. Of this there can be no doubt. Mirick saw a man 
standing at the post opposite his store from fifteen minutes be- 
fore nine until twenty minutes after, dressed in a full frock- 
coat, glazed cap, and so forth, in size and general appearance 
answering to the prisoner at the bar. This person was waiting 

15 there; and whenever any one approached him, he moved to 
and from the corner, as though he would avoid being suspected 
or recognized. Afterwards, two persons were seen by Webster, 
walking in Howard Street, with a slow, deliberate movement 
that attracted his attention. This was about half-past nine. 

20 One of these he took to be the prisoner at the bar, the other 
he did not know. 

84. About half- past ten a person is seen sitting on the rope- 
walk steps, wrapped in a cloak. He drops his head when passed, 
to avoid being known. Shortly after, two persons are seen to 

25 meet in this street, without ceremony or salutation, and in a 
hurried manner to converse for a short time ; then to separate, 
and run off with great speed. Now, on this same night a gen- 
tleman is slain, murdered in his bed, his house being entered 
by stealth from without ; and his house situated within three 

30 hundred feet of this street. The windows of his chamber were 
in plain sight from this street ; a weapon of death is afterwards 
found in a place where these persons were seen to pass, in a 
retired place, around which they had been seen lingering. It 
is now known that this murder was committed by four persons, 



V/EBSTER 



107 



conspiring together for this purpose. No account is given who 
these suspected persons thus seen in Brown Street and its neigh- 
borhood were. Now, I ask, Gentlemen, whether you or any man 
can doubt that this murder was committed by the persons who 
were thus in and about Brown Street. Can any person doubt 5 
that they were there for purposes connected with this murder? 
If not for this purpose, what were they there for ? When there 
is a cause so near at hand, why wander into conjecture for an 
explanation? Common sense requires you to take the nearest 
adequate cause for a known effect. Who were these suspicious 10 
persons in Brown Street? There was something extraordinary 
about them ; something noticeable, and noticed at the time ; 
something in their appearance that aroused suspicion. And a 
man is found the next morning murdered in the near vicinity. 

85. Now, so long as no other account shall be given of those 15 
suspicious persons, so long the inference must remain irresistible 
that they were the murderers. Let it be remembered that it 

is already shown that this murder was the result of conspiracy 
and of concert ; let it be remembered that the house, having 
been opened from within, was entered by stealth from without. 20 
Let it be remembered that Brown Street, where these persons 
were repeatedly seen under such suspicious circumstances, was 
a place from which every occupied room in Mr. White's house 
is clearly seen ; let it be remembered that the place, though 
thus very near to Mr. White's house, is a retired and lonely 25 
place ; and let it be remembered that the instrument of death 
was afterwards found concealed very near the same spot. 

86. Must not every man come to the conclusion that these 
persons thus seen in Brown Street were the murderers ? Every 
man's own judgment, I think, must satisfy him that this must 30 
be so. It is a plain deduction of common sense. It is a point 
on which each one of you may reason like a Hale or a Mans- 
field. The two occurrences explain each other. The murder 
shows why these persons were thus lurking, at that hour, in 



I08 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

Brown Street; and their lurking in Brown Street shows who 
committed the murder. 

87. If, then, the persons in and about Brown Street were 
the plotters and executors of the murder of Captain White, we 
5 know who they were, and you know that there is one of them. 
This fearful concatenation of circumstances puts him to an 
account. He was a conspirator. He had entered into this plan 
of murder. The murder is committed, and he is known to have 
been within three minutes' walk of the place. He must account 

10 for himself. He has attempted this, and failed. Then, with 
all these general reasons to show he was actually in Brown 
Street, and his failures in his alibi^ let us see what is the direct 
proof of his being there. But first, let me ask, is it not very 
remarkable that there is no attempt to show where Richard 

15 Crowninshield, Jr., was on that night? We hear nothing of 
him. He was seen in none of his usual haunts about the town. 
Yet, if he was the actual perpetrator of the murder, which no- 
body doubts, he was in the town somewhere. Can you, there- 
fore, entertain a doubt that he was one of the persons seen in 

20 Brown Street ? And as to the prisoner, you will recollect, that, 
since the testimony of the young men has failed to show where 
he was on that evening, the last we hear or know of him, on 
the day preceding the murder, is, that at four o'clock, p.m., he 
was at his brothers* inWenham. He had left home, after din- 

25 ner, in a manner doubtless designed to avoid observation, and 
had gone to Wenham, probably by way of Danvers. As we 
hear nothing of him after four o'clock, p.m., for the remainder 
of the day and evening ; as he was one of the conspirators ; as 
Richard Crowninshield, Jr., was another ; as Richard Crown- 

30 inshield, Jr., was in town in the evening, and yet seen in no 
usual place of resort, — the inference is very fair that Richard 
Crowninshield, Jr., and the prisoner were together, acting in 
execution of their conspiracy. Of the four conspirators, Joseph 
Knapp was at Wenham, and George Crowninshield has been 



WEBSTER 109 

accounted for ; so that if the persons seen in Brown Street 
were the murderers, one of them must have been Richard 
Crowninshield, Jr., and the other must have been the prisoner 
at the bar. 

88. Now, as to the proof of his identity with one of the per- 5 
sons seen in Brown Street. Mr. Mirick, a cautious witness, 
examined the person he saw, closely, in a light night, and says 
that he thinks the prisoner at the bar is the person ; and that he 
should not hesitate at all, if he were seen in the same dress. 
His opinion is formed partly from his own observation, and 10 
partly from the description of others. But this description turns 
out to be only in regard to the dress. It is said that he is now 
more confident than on the former trial. If he has varied in 
his testimony, make such allowance as you may think proper. 

I do not perceive any material variance. He thought him the 15 
same person, when he was first brought to court, and as he saw 
him get out of the chaise. This is one of the cases in which 
a witness is permitted to give an opinion. This witness is as 
honest as yourselves, neither willing nor swift ; but he says he 
believes it was the man. His words are, '* This is my opinion " ; 20 
and this opinion it is proper for him to give. If partly founded 
on what he has heard^ then this opinion is not to be taken ; but 
if on what he saw^ then you can have no better evidence. I 
lay no stress on similarity of dress. No man will ever lose his 
life by my voice on such evidence. But then it is proper to 25 
notice that no inferences drawn from any dissimilarity of dress 
can be given in the prisoner's favor ; because, in fact, the per- 
son seen by Mirick was dressed like the prisoner. 

89. The description of the person seen by Mirick answers to 
that of the prisoner at the bar. In regard to the supposed dis- 30 
crepancy of statements, before and now, there would be no end 

to such minute inquiries. It would not be strange if witnesses 
should vary. I do not think much of slight shades of variation. 
If I believe the witness is honest, that is enough. If he has 



no THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

expressed himself more strongly now than then, this does not 
prove him false. 

90. Peter E. Webster saw the prisoner at the bar, as he then 
thought, and still thinks, walking in Howard Street at half-past 

5 nine o'clock. He then thought it was Frank Knapp, and has 
not altered his opinion since. He knew him well ; he had 
long known him. If he then thought it was he, this goes far 
to prove it. He observed him the more, as it was unusual to 
see gentlemen walk there at that hour. It was a retired, lonely 

10 street. Now, is there reasonable doubt that Mr. Webster did 
see him there that night ? How can you have more proof than 
this? He judged by his walk, by his general appearance, by his 
deportment. We all judge in this manner. If you believe he is 
right, it goes a great way in this case. But then this person, it is 

15 said, had a cloak on, and that he could not, therefore, be the 
same person that Mirick saw. If we were treating of men that 
had no occasion to disguise themselves or their conduct, there 
might be something in this argument. But as it is there is little 
in it. It may be presumed that they would change their dress. 

20 This would help their disguise. What is easier than to throw 
off a cloak, and again put it on ? Perhaps he was less fearful 
of being known when alone, than when with the perpetrator. 

9 1 . Mr. Southwick swears all that a man can swear. He 
has the best means of judging that could be had at the time. 

25 He tells you that he left his father's house at half-past ten 
o'clock, and as he passed to his own house in Brown Street he 
saw a man sitting on the steps of the rope-walk ; that he passed 
him three times, and each time he held down his head, so that 
he did not see his face. That the man had on a cloak, which 

30 was not wrapped around him, and a glazed cap. That he took 
the man to be Frank Knapp at the time ; that, when he went 
into his house, he told his wife that he thought it was Frank 
Knapp ; that he knew him well, having known him from a boy. 
And his wife swears that he did so tell her when he came home. 



WEBSTER 1 1 1 

What could mislead this witness at the time ? He was not then 
suspecting Frank Knapp of anything. He could not then be 
influenced by any prejudice. If you believe that the witness 
saw Frank Knapp in this position at this time, it proves the 
case. Whether you beheve it or not depends upon the credit 5 
of the witness. He swears it. If true, it is solid evidence. 
Mrs. Southwick supports her husband. Are they true? Are 
they worthy of belief? If he deserves the epithets applied to 
him, then he ought not to be beheved. In this fact they can- 
not be mistaken ; they are right, or they are perjured. As to 10 
his not speaking to Frank Knapp, that depends upon their inti- 
macy. But a very good reason is, Frank chose to disguise him- 
self. This makes nothing against his credit. But it is said that 
he should not be believed. And why? Because, it is said, he 
himself now tells you, that, when he testified before the grand 15 
jury at Ipswich, he did not then say that he thought the person 
he saw in Brown Street was Frank Knapp, but that " the per- 
son was about the size of Selman." The means of attacking 
him, therefore, come from himself. If he is a false man, why 
should he tell truths against himself ? They rely on his veracity 20 
to prove that he is a liar. Before you can come to this con- 
clusion, you will consider whether all the circumstances are 
now known, that should have a bearing on this point. Suppose 
that, when he was before the grand jury, he was asked by the 
attorney this question, " Was the person you saw in Brown 25 
Street about the size of Selman?" and he answered "Yes." 
This was all true. Suppose, also, that he expected to be 
inquired of further, and no further questions were put to him. 
Would it not be extremely hard to impute to him perjury for 
this? It is not uncommon for witnesses to think that they 30 
have done all their duty, when they have answered the ques- 
tions put to them. But suppose that we admit that he did not 
then tell all he knew, this does not affect the/ac^a.t all; because 
he did tell, at the time, in the hearing of others, that the person 



112 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

he saw was Frank Knapp. There is not the slightest suggestion 
against the veracity or accuracy of Mrs. Southwick. Now she 
swears positively that her husband came into the house and 
told her that he had seen a person on the rope-walk steps, 
5 and believed it was Frank Knapp. 

92. It is said that Mr. Southwick is contradicted, also, by 
Mr. Shillaber. I do not so understand Mr. Shillaber's testi- 
mony. I think what they both testify is reconcilable and con- 
sistent. My learned brother said, on a similar occasion, that 

10 there is more probability, in such cases, that the persons hear- 
ing should misunderstand, than that the person speaking should 
contradict himself. I think the same remark applicable here. 

93. You have all witnessed the uncertainty of testimony, 
when witnesses are called to testify what other witnesses said. 

15 Several respectable counselors have been summoned, on this 
occasion, to give testimony of that sort. They have, every one 
of them, given different versions. They all took minutes at the 
time, and without doubt intend to state the truth. But still 
they differ. Mr. Shillaber's version is different from everything 

20 that Southwick has stated elsewhere. But little reliance is to 
be placed on slight variations in testimony, unless they are 
manifestly intentional. I think that Mr. Shillaber must be sat- 
isfied that he did not rightly understand Mr. Southwick. I con- 
fess I misunderstood Mr. Shillaber on the former trial, if I now 

25 rightly understand him. I, therefore, did not then recall Mr. 
Southwick to the stand. Mr. Southwick, as I read it, understood 
Mr. Shillaber as asking him about a person coming out of 
Newbury Street, and whether, for aught he knew, it might not 
be Richard Crowninshield, Jr. He answered that he could not 

30 tell. He did not understand Mr. Shillaber as questioning him 
as to the person whom he saw sitting on the steps of the rope- 
walk. Southwick, on this trial, having heard Mr. Shillaber, has 
been recalled to the stand, and states that Mr. Shillaber entirely 
misunderstood him. This is certainly most probable, because 



WEBSTER 113 

the controlling fact in the case is not controverted ; that is, that 
Southwick did tell his wife, at the very moment he entered his 
house, that he had seen a person on the rope-walk steps, whom 
he believed to be Frank Knapp. Nothing can prove with more 
certainty than this, that Southwick, at the time, thought the 5 
person whom he thus saw to be the prisoner at the bar. 

94. Mr. Bray is an acknowledged accurate and intelligent 
witness. He was highly complimented by my brother on the 
former trial, although he now charges him with varying his 
testimony. What could be his motive? You will be slow in 10 
imputing to him any design of this kind. I deny altogether 
that there is any contradiction. There may be differences, but 
not contradiction. These arise from the difference in the ques- 
tions put ; the difference between believing and knowing. On 
the first trial, he said he did not know the person, and now says 15 
the same. Then, we did not do all we had a right to do. We 
did not ask him who he thought it was. Now, when so asked, 
he says he believes it was the prisoner at the bar. If he had 
then been asked this question, he would have given the same 
answer. That he has expressed himself more strongly, I admit; 20 
but he has not contradicted himself. He is more confident 
now ; and that is all. A man may not assert a thing, and still 
may have no doubt upon it. Cannot every man see this dis- 
tinction to be consistent? I leave him in that attitude; that 
only is the difference. On questions of identity, opinion is evi- 25 
dence. We may ask the witness, either if he knew who the 
person seen was, or who he thinks he was. And he may well 
answer, as Captain Bray has answered, that he does not know 
who it was, but that he thinks it was the prisoner. 

95. We have offered to produce witnesses to prove, that, as 30 
soon as Bray saw the prisoner, he pronounced him the same 
person. We are not at liberty to call them to corroborate our 
own witness. How, then, could this fact of the prisoner's 
being in Brown Street be better proved ? If ten witnesses had 



114 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

testified to it, it would be no better. Two men, who knew him 
well, took it to be Frank Knapp, and one of them so said, 
when there was nothing to mislead them. Two others, who 
examined him closely, now swear to their opinion that he is 
5 the man. 

96. Miss Jaqueth saw three persons pass by the rope-walk, 
several evenings before the murder. She saw one of them 
pointing towards Mr. White's house. She noticed that another 
had something which appeared to be like an instrument of 

10 music ] that he put it behind him and attempted to conceal 
it. Who were these persons? This was but a few steps from 
the place where this apparent instrument of music (of music 
such as Richard Crowninshield, Jr., spoke of to Palmer) was 
afterwards found. These facts prove this a point of rendez- 

15 vous for these parties. They show Brown Street to have been 
the place for consultation and observation; and to this pur- 
pose it was well suited. 

97. Mr. Burns's testimony is also important. What was the 
defendant's object in his private conversation with Burns-? 

20 He knew that Burns was out that night; that he lived near 
Brown Street, and that he had probably seen him ; and he 
wished him to say nothing. He said to Burns, " If you saw 
any of your friends out that night, say nothing about it ; my 
brother Joe and I are your friends." This is plain proof that 

25 he wished to say to him, '' If you saw me in Brown Street that 
night, say nothing about it." 

98. But it is said that Burns ought not to be believed, because 
he mistook the color of the dagger, and because he has varied 
in his description of it. These are sHght circumstances, if his 

30 general character be good. To my mind they are of no im- 
portance. It is for you to make what deduction you may 
think proper, on this account, from the weight of his evidence. 
His conversation with Burns, if Burns is beheved, shows two 
things ; first, that he desired Burns not to mention it, if he had 



WEBSTER 115 

seen him on the night of the murder ; second, that he wished 
to fix the charge of murder on Mr. Stephen White. Both of 
these prove his own guilt. 

99. I think you will be of opinion that Brown Street was a 
probable place for the conspirators to assemble, and for an aid 5 
to be stationed. If we knew their whole plan, and if we were 
skilled to judge in such a case, then we could perhaps deter- 
mine on this point better. But it is a retired place, and still 
commands a full view of the house; a lonely place, but still a 
place of observation. Not so lonely that a person would ex- 10 
cite suspicion to be seen walking there in an ordinary manner ; 
not so public as to be noticed by many. It is near enough to 
the scene of action in point of law. It was their point of cen- 
trality. The club was found near the spot, in a place provided 
for it, in a place that had been previously hunted out, in a con- 1 5 
certed place of concealment. Hei-e ivas their point of rendez- 
vous. Here might the lights be seen. Here might an aid be 
secreted. Here was he within call. Here might he be aroused 
by the sound of the whistle. Here might he carry the weapon. 
Here might he receive the murderer after the murder. 20 

100. Then, Gentlemen, the general question occurs. Is it 
satisfactorily proved, by all these facts and circumstances, that 
the defendant was in and about Brown Street on the night of 
the murder? Considering that the murder was effected by a 
conspiracy ; considering that he was one of the four conspira- 25 
tors ; considering that two of the conspirators have accounted 
for themselves on the night of the murder, and were not in 
Brown Street ; considering that the prisoner does not account 
for himself, nor show where he was ; considering that Richard 
Crowninshield, the other conspirator and the perpetrator, is 30 
not accounted for, nor shown to be elsewhere ; considering 
that it is now past all doubt that two persons were seen lurk- 
ing in and about Brown Street at different times, avoiding ob- 
servation, and exciting so much suspicion that the neighbors 



Il6 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

actually watched them ; considering that, if these persons thus 
lurking in Brown Street at that hour were not the murderers, 
it remains to this day wholly unknown who they were or what 
their business was ; considering the testimony of Miss Jaqueth, 
5 and that the club was afterwards found near this place ; con- 
sidering, finally, that Webster and Southwick saw these per- 
sons, and then took one of them for the defendant, and that 
Southwick then told his wife so, and that Bray and Mirick 
examined them closely, and now swear to their belief that the 

10 prisoner was one of them; — it is for you to say, putting these 
considerations together, whether you believe the prisoner was 
actually in Brown Street at the time of the murder. 

loi. By the counsel for the prisoner, much stress has been 
laid upon the question, whether Brown Street was a place in 

15 which aid could be given, a place in which actual assistance 
could be rendered in this transaction. This must be mainly 
decided by their own opinion who selected the place ; by what 
they thought at the time, according to their plan of operation. 
If it was agreed that the prisoner should be there to assist, 

20, it is enough. If they thought the place proper for their pur- 
pose, according to their plan, it is sufficient. Suppose we could 
prove expressly that they agreed that Frank should be there, 
and he was there, and you should think it not a well-chosen 
place for aiding and abetting, must he be acquitted? No 1 It 

25 is not what / think or you think of the appropriateness of the 
place; it is what they thought at the time. If the prisoner 
was in Brown Street by appointment and agreement with the 
perpetrator, for the purpose of giving assistance if assistance 
should be needed, it may safely be presumed that the place 

30 was suited to such assistance as it was supposed by the parties 
might chance to become requisite. 

102. If in Brown Street, was he there by appointment ? was 
he there to aid, if aid were necessary? was he there for, or 
against, the murderer? to concur, or to oppose? to favor or to 



WEBSTER 117 

thwart? Did the perpetrator know he was there, there waiting? 
If so, then it follows that he was there by appointment. He 
was at the post half an hour; he was waiting for somebody. 
This proves appointment, arrangement, previous agreement; 
then it follows that he was there to aid, to encourage, to em- 5 
bolden the perpetrator ; and that is enough. If he were in 
such a situation as to afford aid, or that he was relied upon for 
aid, then he was aiding and abetting. It is enough that the 
conspirator desired to have him there. Besides, it may be well 
said that he could afford just as much aid there as if he had 10 
been in Essex Street, as if he had been standing even at the 
gate, or at the window. It was not an act of power against 
power that was to be done ; it was a secret act, to be done by 
stealth. The aid was to be placed in a position secure from 
observation. It was important to the security of both that he 15 
should be in a lonely place. Now it is obvious that there 
are many purposes for which he might be in Brown Street : 
(i) Richard Crowninshield might have been secreted in the 
garden, and waiting for a signal ; (2) or he might be in Brown 
Street to advise him as to the time of making his entry into 20 
the house ; (3) or to favor his escape ; (4) or to see if the street 
was clear when he came out ; (5) or to conceal the weapon or 
the clothes ; (6) to be ready for any unforeseen contingency. 
Richard Crowninshield lived in Danvers. He would retire by 
the most secret way. Brown Street is that way. If you find 25 
him there, can you doubt why he was there ? 

103. If, Gentlemen, the prisoner went into Brown Street, by 
appointment with the perpetrator, to render aid or encourage- 
ment in any of these ways, he was present^ in legal contempla- 
tion, aiding and abetting in this murder. It is not necessary 30 
that he should have done anything ; it is enough that he was 
ready to act, and in a place to act. If his being in Brown 
Street, by appointment, at the time of the murder, embold- 
ened the purpose and encouraged the heart of the murderer 



Il8 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

by the hope of instant aid, if aid should become necessary, 
then, without doubt, he was present, aiding and abetting, and 
was a principal in the murder. 

104. I now proceed. Gentlemen, to the consideration of 

5 the testimony of Mr. Colman. Although this evidence bears 
on every material part of the cause, I have purposely avoided 
every comment on it till the present moment, when I have 
done with the other evidence in the case. As to the admis- 
sion of this evidence, there has been a great struggle, and its 

10 importance demanded it. The general rule of law is, that 
confessions are to be received as evidence. They are entitled 
to great or to little consideration, according to the circum- 
stances under which they are made. Voluntary, deliberate 
confessions are the most important and satisfactory evidence, 

15 but confessions hastily made, or improperly obtained, are en- 
titled to little or no consideration. It is always to be inquired, 
whether they were purely voluntary, or were made under any 
undue influence of hope or fear ; for, in general, if any influ- 
ence were exerted on the mind of the person confessing, such 

20 confessions are not to be submitted to a jury. Who is Mr. 
Colman? He is an intelligent, accurate, and cautious witness ; 
a gentleman of high and well-known character, and of un- 
questionable veracity ; as a clergyman, highly respectable ; as 
a man, of fair name and fame. Why was Mr. Colman with 

25 the prisoner? Joseph Knapp was his parishioner; he was the 
head of a family, and had been married by Mr. Colman. The 
interests of that family were dear to him. He felt for their 
afflictions, and was anxious to alleviate their sufferings. He 
went from the purest and best of motives to visit Joseph 

30 Knapp. He came to save, not to destroy; to rescue, not to 
take away life. In this family he thought there might be a 
chance to save one. It is a misconstruction of Mr. Colman's 
motives, at once the most strange and the most uncharitable, 
a perversion of all just views of his conduct and intentions the 



WEBSTER 1 19 

most unaccountable, to represent him as acting, on this occa- 
sion, in hostility to any one, or as desirous of injuring or endan- 
gering any one. He has stated his own motives, and his own 
conduct, in a manner to command universal belief and universal 
respect. For intelligence, for consistency, for accuracy, for 5 
caution, for candor, never did witness aquit himself better, or 
stand fairer. In all that he did as a man, and all he has said 
as a witness, he has shown himself worthy of entire regard. 

105. Now, Gentlemen, very important confessions made by 
the prisoner are sworn to by Mr. Colman. They were made 10 
in the prisoner's cell, where Mr. Colman had gone with the 
prisoner's brother, Phippen Knapp. Whatever conversation 
took place was in the presence of Phippen Knapp. Now, on the 
part of the prisoner, two things are asserted ; first, that such 
inducements were suggested to the prisoner, in this interview, 15 
that no confessions made by him ought to be received ; 
second, that, in point of fact, he made no such confessions as 
Mr. Colman testifies to, nor, indeed, any confessions at all. 
These two propositions are attempted to be supported by the 
testimony of Phippen Knapp. These two witnesses, Mr. Col- 20 
man and Phippen Knapp, differ entirely. There is no possi- 
bility of reconciling them. No charity can cover both. One 

or the other has sworn falsely. If Phippen Knapp be believed, 
Mr. Colman's testimony must be wholly disregarded. It is, 
then, a question of credit, a question of behef between the two 25 
witnesses. As you decide between these, so you will decide 
on all this part of the case. 

106. Mr. Colman has given you a plain narrative, a consistent 
account, and has uniformly stated the same things. He is not 
contradicted, except by the testimony of Phippen Knapp. He 30 
is influenced, as far as we can see, by no bias, or prejudice, any 
more than other men, except so far as his character is now 

at stake. He has feelings on this point, doubtless, and ought 
to have. If what he has stated be not true, I cannot see any 



T20 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

ground for his escape. If he be a true man, he must have heard 
what he testifies. No treachery of memory brings to memory 
things that never took place. There is no reconciHng his evi- 
dence with good intention, if the facts in it are not as he states 
5 them. He is on trial as to his veracity. 

107. The relation in which the other witness stands deserves 
your careful consideration. He is a member of the family. He 
has the lives of two brothers depending, as he may think, on the 
effect of his evidence ; depending on every word he speaks. I 

10 hope he has not another responsibiHty resting upon him. By 
the advice of a friend, and that friend Mr. Colman, Joseph 
Knapp made a full and free confession, and obtained a promise 
of pardon. He has since, as you know, probably by the advice of 
other friends, retracted that confession, and rejected the offered 

15 pardon. Events will show who of these friends and advisers 
advised him best, and befriended him most. In the mean time, 
if this brother, the witness, be one of these advisers, and ad- 
vised the retraction, he has, most emphatically, the lives of 
his brothers resting upon his evidence and upon his conduct. 

20 Compare the situation of these two witnesses. Do you not see 
mighty motive enough on the one side, and want of all motive 
on the other ? I would gladly find an apology for that witness, 
in his agonized feelings, in his distressed situation ; in the agi- 
tation of that hour, or of this. I would gladly impute it to 

25 error or to want of recollection, to confusion of mind or dis- 
turbance of feeling. I would gladly impute to any pardonable 
source that which cannot be reconciled to facts and to truth; 
but, even in a case calling for so much sympathy, justice must 
yet prevail, and we must come to the conclusion, however 

30 reluctantly, which that demands from us. 

108. It is said, Phippen Knapp was probably correct, because 
he knew he should probably be called as a witness. Witness to 
what? When he says there was no confession, what could he ex- 
pect to bear witness of ? But I do not put it on the ground that 



WEBSTER 121 

he did not hear ; T am compelled to put it on the other ground, 
that he did hear, and does not now truly tell what he heard. 

109. If Mr. Colman were out of the case, there are other 
reasons why the story of Phippen Knapp should not be believed. 

It has in it inherent improbabilities. It is unnatural, and incon- 5 
sistent with the accompanying circumstances. He tells you 
that they went *' to the cell of Frank, to see if he had any ob- 
jection to taking a trial, and suffering his brother to accept the 
offer of pardon " ; in other words, to obtain Frank's consent to 
Joseph's making a confession ; and in case this consent was not 10 
obtained, that the pardon would be offered to Frank. Did they 
bandy about the chance of life, between these two, in this way? 
Did Mr. Colman, after having given this pledge to Joseph, and 
after having received a disclosure from Joseph, go to the cell of 
Frank for such a purpose as this? It is impossible; it cannot 15 
be so. 

1 10. Again, we know that Mr. Colman found the club the next 
day ; that he went directly to the place of deposit, and found it 
at the first attempt, exactly where he says he had been informed 

it was. Now Phippen Knapp says that Frank had stated noth- 20 
ing respecting the club ; that it was not mentioned in that 
conversation. He says, also, that he was present in the cell of 
Joseph all the time that Mr. Colman was there; that he be- 
lieves he heard all that was said in Joseph's cell ; and that he 
did not himself know where the club was, and never had known 25 
where it was, until he heard it stated in court. Now it is cer- 
tain that Mr. Colman says he did not learn the particular place 
of deposit of the club from Joseph ; that he only learned from 
him that it was deposited under the steps of the Howard Street 
meeting-house, without defining the particular steps. It is cer- 30 
tain, also, that he had more knowledge of the position of the 
club than this ; else how could he have placed his hand on it so 
readily ? and where else could he have obtained this knowledge, 
except from Frank? 



122 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

111. My point is to show that Phippen Knapp's story is not 
true, is not consistent with itself ; that, taking it for granted, as 
he says, that he heard all that was said to Mr. Colman in both 
cells, by Joseph and by Frank ; and that Joseph did not state 

5 particularly where the club was deposited ; and that he knew 
as much about the place of deposit of the club as Mr. Colman 
knew ; why, then Mr. Colman must either have been miracu- 
lously informed respecting the club, or Phippen Knapp has 
not told you the whole truth. There is no reconcihng this, 
lo without supposing that Mr. Colman has misrepresented what 
took place in Joseph's cell, as welF as what took place in 
Frank's cell. 

112. Again, Phippen Knapp is directly contradicted by Mr. 
Wheatland. Mr. Wheatland tells the same story, as coming 

15 from Phippen Knapp, that Colman now tells. Here there are 
two against one. Phippen Knapp says that Frank made no 
confessions, and that he said he had none to make. In this 
he is contradicted by Wheatland. He, Phippen Knapp, told 
Wheatland that Mr. Colman did ask Frank some questions, 

20 and that Frank answered them. He told him also what these 
answers were. Wheatland does not recollect the questions or 
answers, but recollects his reply, which was, *' Is not this 
premature ? I think this answer is sufficient to make Frank a 
principal." Here Phippen Knapp opposes himself to Wheat- 

25 land, as well as to Mr. Colman. Do you believe Phippen 
Knapp against these two respectable witnesses, or them against 
him? 

T13. Is not Mr. Colman's testimony credible, natural, and 
proper? To judge of this, you must go back to that scene. 

30 114. The murder had been committed; the two Knapps were 
now arrested ; four persons were already in jail supposed to be 
concerned in it, the Crowninshields, and Selman, and Chase. 
Another person at the eastward was supposed to be in the plot; 
it was important to learn the facts. To do this, some one of 



WEBSTER 123 

those suspected must be admitted to turn state's witness. 
The contest was, Who should have this privilege? It was un- 
derstood that it was about to be offered to Palmer, then in 
Maine ; there was no good reason why he should have the 
preference. Mr. Colman felt interested for the family of the 5 
Knapps, and particularly for Joseph. He was a young man 
who had hitherto maintained a fair standing in society ; he 
was a husband. Mr. Colman was particularly intimate with his 
family. With these views he went to the prison. He believed 
that he might safely converse with the prisoner, because he 10 
thought confessions made to a clergyman were sacred, and that 
he could not be called upon to disclose them. He went, the 
first time, in the morning, and was requested to come again. 
He went again at three o'clock ; and was requested to call 
again at five o'clock. In the mean time he saw the father and 15 
Phippen, and they wished he would not go again, because it 
would be said the prisoners were making confessions. He said 
he had engaged to go again at five o'clock, but would not, if 
Phippen would excuse him to Joseph. Phippen engaged to do 
this, and to meet him at his office at five o'clock. Mr. Colman 20 
went to the office at the time, and waited ; but, as Phippen 
was not there, he walked down street, and saw him coming 
from the jail. He met him, and while in conversation near 
the church, he saw Mrs. Beckford and Mrs. Knapp going in a 
chaise towards the jail. He hastened to meet them, as he 25 
thought it not proper for them to go in at that time. While 
conversing with them near the jail, he received two dis- 
tinct messages from Joseph, that he wished to see him. He 
thought it proper to go ; and accordingly went to Joseph's cell, 
and it was while there that the disclosures were made. Before 3c 
Joseph had finished his statement, Phippen came to the door; 
he was soon after admitted. A short interval ensued, and they 
went together to the cell of Frank. Mr. Colman went in by 
invitation of Phippen ; he had come directly from the cell of 



124 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

Joseph, where he had for the first time learned the incidents 
of the tragedy. He was incredulous as to some of the facts 
which he had learned, they were so different from his previous 
impressions. He was desirous of knowing whether he could 

5 place confidence in what Joseph had told him. He therefore 
put the questions to Frank, as he has testified before you ; in 
answer to which Frank Knapp informed him, — (i) " that the 
murder took place between ten and eleven o'clock "; (2) '^ that 
Richard Crowninshield was alone in the house "; (3) " that he, 

10 Frank Knapp, went home afterwards "; (4) "that the club was 
deposited under the steps of the Howard Street meeting-house, 
and under the part nearest the burying- ground, in a rat-hole "; 
(5) "that the dagger or daggers had been worked up at the 
factory." 

15 115. It is said that these five answers just fit the case ; that 
they are just what was wanted, and neither more nor less. True, 
they are ; but the reason is, because truth always fits. Truth is 
always congruous, and agrees with itself; every truth in the 
universe agrees with every other truth in the universe ; whereas 

20 falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel 
among themselves. Surely Mr. Colman is influenced by no 
bias, no prejudice ; he has no feelings to warp him, except, 
now that he is contradicted, he may feel an interest to be 
believed. If you believe Mr. Colman, then the evidence is 

25 fairly in the case. 

116. I shall now proceed on the ground that you do believe 
Mr. Colman. 

117. When told that Joseph had determined to confess, the 
defendant said, " It is hard, or unfair, that Joseph should have 

30 the benefit of confessing, since the thing was done for his 
benefit." What thing was done for his benefit? Does not this 
carry an implication of the guilt of the defendant? Does it 
not show that he had a knowledge of the object and history of 
the murder? 



WEBSTER 125 

118. The defendant said, " I told Joseph, when he proposed it, 
that it was a silly business, and would get us into trouble." He 
knew, then, what this business was ; he knew that Joseph pro- 
posed it, and that he agreed to it, else he could not get us into 
trouble ; he understood its bearing and its consequences. Thus 5 
much was said, under circumstances that make it clearly evi- 
dence against him, before there is any pretense of an induce- 
ment held out. And does not this prove him to have had a 
knowledge of the conspiracy? 

119. He knew the daggers had been destroyed, and he knew 10 
who committed the murder. How could he have innocently 
known these facts? Why, if by Richard's story, this shows him 
guilty of a knowledge of the murder, and of the conspiracy. 
More than all, he knew when the deed was done, and that he 
went home afterwards. This shows his participation in that deed. 15 
"Went home afterwards" ! Home, from what scene? home, 
from what fact? home, from what transaction? home, from 
what place? This confirms the supposition that the prisoner 
was in Brown Street for the purposes ascribed to him. These 
questions were directly put, and directly answered. He does 20 
not intimate that he received the information from another. 
Now, if he knows the time, and went home afterwards, and 
does not excuse himself, is not this an admission that he had 

a hand in this murder ? Already proved to be a conspirator in 
the murder, he now confesses that he knew who did it, at what 25 
time it was done, that he was himself out of his own house at 
the time, and went home afterwards. Is not this conclusive, 
if not explained? Then comes the club. He told where it 
was. This is like possession of stolen goods. He is charged 
with the guilty knowledge of this concealment. He must show, 30 
not say, how he came by this knowledge. If a man be found 
with stolen goods, he must prove how he came by them. The 
place of deposit of the club was premeditated and selected, and 
he knew where it was. 



126 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

1 20. Joseph Knapp was an accessory, and an accessory only ; 
he knew only what was told him. But the prisoner knew the 
particular spot in which the club might be found. This shows 
his knowledge something more than that of an accessory. This 

5 presumption must be rebutted by evidence, or it stands strong 
against him. He has too much knowledge of this transaction 
to have come innocently by it. It must stand against him until 
he explains it. 

121. This testimony of Mr. Colman is represented as new 
10 matter, and therefore an attempt has been made to excite a 

prejudice against it. It is not so. How little is there in it, 
after all, that did not appear from other sources? It is mainly 
confirmatory. Compare what you learn from this confession 
with what you before knew. As to its being proposed by 

15 Joseph, was not that known? As to Richard's being alone in 
the house, was not that known? As to the daggers, was not 
that known? As to the time of the murder, was not that 
known ? As to his being out that night, was not that known ? 
As to his returning afterwards, was not that known? As to 

20 the club, was not that known? So this information confirms 
what was known before, and fully confirms it. 

122. One word as to the interview between Mr. Colman and 
Phippen Knapp on the turnpike. It is said that Mr. Colman's 
conduct in this matter is inconsistent with his testimony. 

25 There does not appear to me to be any inconsistency. He 
tells you that his object was to save Joseph, and to hurt no 
one, and least of all the prisoner at the bar. He had probably 
told Mr. White the substance of what he heard at the prison. 
He had probably told him that Frank confirmed what Joseph 

30 had confessed. He was unwilling to be the instrument of 
harm to Frank. He therefore, at the request of Phippen 
Knapp, wrote a note to Mr. White, requesting him to consider 
Joseph as authority for the information he had received. He 
tells you that this is the only thing he has to regret, as it 



WEBSTER 127 

may seem to be an evasion, as he doubts whether it is en- 
tirely correct. If it was an evasion, if it was a deviation, if 
it was an error, it was an error of mercy, an error of kind- 
ness, — an error that proves he had no hostihty to the pris- 
oner at the bar. It does not in the least vary his testimony, 5 
or affect its correctness. Gentlemen, I look on the evidence 
of Mr. Colman as highly important ; not as bringing into 
the cause new facts, but as confirming, in a very satisfactory 
manner, other evidence. It is incredible that he can be false, 
and that he is seeking the prisoner's life through false swear- 10 
ing. If he is true, it is incredible that the prisoner can be 
innocent. 

123. Gentlemen, I have gone through with the evidence in 
this case, and have endeavored to state it plainly and fairly 
before you. I think there are conclusions to be drawn from it, 15 
the accuracy of which you cannot doubt. I think you can- 
not doubt that there was a conspiracy formed for the purpose 

of committing this murder, and who the conspirators were ; 
that you cannot doubt that the Crowninshields and the 
Knapps were the parties in this conspiracy ; that you cannot 20 
doubt that the prisoner at the bar knew that the murder was 
to be done on the night of the 6th of April ; that you cannot 
doubt that the murderers of Captain White were the suspicious 
persons seen in and about Brown Street on that night ; that 
you cannot doubt that Richard Crowninshield was the perpe- 25 
trator of that crime ; that you cannot doubt that the prisoner 
at the bar was in Brown Street on that night. If there, then 
it must be by agreement, to countenance, to aid the perpetra- 
tor. And if so, then he is guilty as Principal. 

124. Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your 30 
duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You 
will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, 
may endanger the prisoner's life, but then it is to save other 
lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and proved 



128 THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 

beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such 
reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. 
You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the 
public, as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot pre- 

5 sume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straight- 
forward one. Doubtless we would all judge him in mercy. 
Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; 
but towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the 
oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you 

lo do your duty. 

125. With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, 
no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we can- 
not either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty 
disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omni- 

15 present, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of 
the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty 
performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness 
or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the 
darkness as in the hght our obhgations are yet with us. We 

20 cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They 
are with us in this life, will be with us at its close ; and in that 
scene of inconceivable solemnity which Hes yet farther on- 
ward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the conscious- 
ness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to 

25 console us so far as God may have given us grace to per- 
form it. 



*^A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF 
CANNOT STAND" 

Abraham Lincoln 

A SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE OF THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION 

FOR United States Senator at Springfield, Illinois, 
June 17, 1858. 

INTRODUCTION 

The biography of Abraham Lincoln, up to the time that he be- 
came a figure of national importance, may best be told in his own 
words. Answering one who, in 1859, had asked him for some bio- 
graphic particulars, Lincoln wrote : 

"I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. 
My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished fami- 
lies. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of 
the name of Hanks. My father (Thomas Lincoln), by the early 
death of his father, and the very narrow circumstances of his 
mother, was, even in childhood, a wandering, laboring boy, and 
grew up literally without education. He never did more in the way 
of writing than bunglingly to write his own name. He removed 
from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my 
eighth year. It was a wild region, with many bears and other ani- 
mals still in the woods. There were some schools, so-called, but 
no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond ' readin', 
writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three'. If a straggler sup- 
posed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighbor- 
hood, he was looked upon as a wizard. Of course, when I came 
of age I did not know much. Still, somehow I could read, write, 
and cipher to the Rule of Three. The litde advance I now have 
upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time 
under the pressure of necessity. 

129 



I30 DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH 

" I was raised to farm work till I was twenty-two. At twenty- 
one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, 
where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came 
the Black Hawk War and I was elected captain of a volunteer 
regiment, a success that gave me more pleasure than any I have 
had since. I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the legislature 
the same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I ever have 
been beaten by the people. The next, and three succeeding bien- 
nial elections, I was elected to the legislature. I Was not a candi- 
date afterward. During the legislative period I had studied law 
and removed to Springfield to practice it. In. 1846 I was elected to 
the lower house of Congress. Was not a candidate for reelection. 
From 1849 ^^ 1854, inclusive, practiced law more assiduously 
than ever before, was always a Whig in politics, and generally 
on the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was 
losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise aroused me again. 

" If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may 
be said that I am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean in 
flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds ; 
dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other 
marks or brands recollected." 

In 1858 Lincoln may be said to have taken up the slavery ques- 
tion where Webster left it in his speech of March 7, 1850. Though 
Lincoln, in the quotation above, speaks of the period from 1 849 to 
1854 as one of political inactivity, it seems to have been utilized 
by him as a period of preparation for his great work, and the 
result is enunciated in the speech in this volume. The issue, as 
defined by him in this speech, — though Lincoln, with many states- 
men on both sides, tried to effect a peaceable settlement, — was 
fought out in the Civil War. 

When Lincoln was assassinated (April 14, 1865) he was the idol 
of a section. With the passing of time he has come to be looked 
upon as the national man-type, so that the poetic eulogy of Lowell 
is applicable now in a fuller sense than when it was first written. 

Standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 



LINCOLN 131 

Although Lincoln is chiefly remembered as a statesman rather 
than as an orator, he nevertheless wielded a tremendous influence 
through his speeches. This must be attributed to the matter and 
style of his address rather than to any so-called arts of delivery. 
As to the latter, he was a " natural orator," owing as little to 
books and teachers as any man of equal eminence. He had a 
falsetto and not particularly strong voice, a plain and unimpas- 
sioned delivery, an awkward and ungainly carriage, and yet he 
convinced and persuaded his hearers by his clear, simple state- 
ments, homespun diction, and intense moral earnestness. Lincoln's 
style, from the standpoints of clearness and simplicity, may well 
be studied by any one who expects to address a popular audience. 
He learned the art of putting things to an average American audi- 
ence as few political speakers have acquired it. " His happy state- 
ment of a case was better than most men's argument." Yet more 
than Webster, far more than Burke, his style is marked by great 
simplicity. There is no needless amplification or " excursus." Take 
the speech in this volume, for example. Condensation is impossible. 
Not a paragraph — if indeed a word — could be omitted without 
taking away something vital to the discussion. It is solid argument, 
as sententious and axiomatic as if made to a bench of jurists. 

Regarding his training in attaining clearness of statement, Lin- 
coln once said to a friend : " I remember how, when a mere child, 
I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could 
not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything else in 
my life. But that always disturbed my temper, and has ever since. 
I can remember going to my bedroom, after hearing the neighbors 
talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of 
the night walking up and down, and trying to make out what was 
the meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not 
sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an 
idea, until I had caught it ; and when I thought I had got it, I was 
not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put 
it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to 
comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has 
stuck by me, for I am never easy now, when I am handling a 
thought, till I have bounded it north and bounded it south and 
bounded it east and bounded it west." 

The " Divided House " Speech was delivered in the Statehouse 
at Springfield, Illinois, on the evening of April 17, 1858, at the 



132 DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH 

close of the Republican State Convention held at that time and 
place, the convention having unanimously passed a resolution 
which declared that " Abraham Lincoln is our first and only 
choice for United States Senator as the successor of Stephen A. 
Douglas." Lincoln had expected the nomination, and for a long 
time previously had been working on his speech of acceptance. It 
was no doubt the most carefully prepared speech of his whole life. 
Every word of it was written, every sentence had been tested. In 
the process of composition it is said ^ that he ceaselessly turned 
over the subject-matter in his mind, frequently stopping short to 
jot an idea or expression upon some scrap of paper, which he then 
thrust into his hat. Thus, piece by piece, the accumulation grew 
alike inside and outside of his head, and at last he took all his 
fragments and with infinite consideration molded them into unity. 
By the time of delivery he had committed the whole speech accu- 
rately to memory, and it was spoken without manuscript or notes. 
The evening of the day previous to its delivery he had produced 
the finished manuscript and read the opening paragraph to his 
law partner, Mr. Herndon. " Is it politic," Mr. Herndon asked, " to 
speak it as it is written ? " referring to the expression, " A house 
divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln answered, " I want 
to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language 
as universally known, that may strike home to the minds of men in 
order to rouse them to the peril of the times. I would rather be 
defeated with this expression in the speech, and have it held up 
and discussed before the people, than to be victorious without it." 
Other close political friends were called in council. They thought 
his utterance impolitic and sure to lead to his defeat. Lincoln 
heard them patiently and then said : 

" Friends, I have thought about the matter a great deal, have 
weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly 
convinced that the time has come when it should be uttered, and 
if it must be that I must go down with this speech, then let me go 
down linked to truth, die in the advocacy of what is just and right. 
.This nation cannot live on injustice. ' A house divided against 
itself cannot stand,' I say again and again." 

The speech was given in the original form, and events soon 
proved the importance of Lincoln's painstaking preparation. It 

1 Morse, Abraham Lincoln (American Statesman Series), Vol. I, 
p. 117. 



LINCOLN 133 

was at once subjected to a dissection and criticism such as do not 
often follow the winged words of the orator. And this because it 
contained a plain statement of a truth which all politicians and 
many statesmen, both North and South, were attempting to stamp 
down as an untruth. Politically, too, the speech proved to be the 
first step in Lincoln's progress to the White House. Mr. Chitten- 
den, in his compilation of Lincoln's speeches, says that the fol- 
lowing speech, " whether judged by its intrinsic qualities or by 
its influence upon the fortunes of the Republic, is one of the 
greatest of all political documents since the Declaration of 
Independence.'' 

1. Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention: 
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tend- 
ing, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We 
are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with 
the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end 5 
to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that 
agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly aug- 
mented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis. shall 
have been reached and passed. " A house divided against 
itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure 10 
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery 
will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 15 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward, till 

it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new 
— North as well as South. 

2. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any- 20 
one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost com- 
plete legal combination — piece of machinery, so to speak — 
compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott 
decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery 



134 DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH 

is adapted to do, and how well adapted ; but also, let him 
study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, 
or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design, 
and concert of action, among its chief architects, from the 
5 beginning. 

3. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more 
than half the states by state constitutions, and from most of 
the national territory by Congressional prohibition. Four 
days later, commenced the struggle which ended in repealing 

10 that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the national 
territory to slavery, and was the first point gained. 

4. But, so far. Congress only had acted ; and an indorsement 
by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the 
point already gained, and give chance for more. This neces- 

15 sity had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as 
well as might be, in the notable argument of " squatter sover- 
eignty," otherwise called "sacred right of self-government," 
which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful 
basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted 

20 use of it as to amount to just this : That if any one man 
choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to 
object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska 
bill itself, in the language which follows : *' It being the true 
intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any 

25 territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom ; but to leave 
the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the 
Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of 
loose declamation in favor of "squatter sovereignty," and 

30 "sacred right of self-government." "But," said opposition 
members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare 
that the people of the territory may exclude slavery." " Not 
we," said the friends of the measure; and down they voted 
the amendment. 



LINCOLN 135 

5. While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a 
laiv case involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason 
of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state 
and then into a territory covered by the Congressional pro- 
hibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was 5 
passing through the United States Circuit Court for the Dis- 
trict of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and law suit were 
brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The 
negro's name was " Dred Scott," which name now designates 
the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next 10 
presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued in, 
the Supreme Court of the United States ; but the decision of it 
was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election. 
Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the 
leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opifiion 15 
whether the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude 
slavery from their limits ; and the latter answers : " That is a 
question for the Supreme Court." 

6. The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the 
indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second 20 
point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear 
popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and 
so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. 
The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impres- 
sively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and 25 
authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again ; 
did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. 
The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of 
the court ; but the incoming President in his inaugural address 
fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming de- 30 
cision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the 
decision. 

7. The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early 
occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred 



136 DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH 

Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to 
it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the 
Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, 
and to express his astonishment that any different view had 
5 ever been entertained ! 

8. At length a squabble springs up between the President 
and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of 
fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in 
any just sense, made by the people of Kansas ; and in that 

10 quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for 
the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted 
down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that 
he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to 
be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the 

15 policy he would impress upon the public mind — the principle 
for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to 
suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. 
If he has any parental feeling, well may he chng to it. That 
principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doc- 

20 trine. Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty" 
squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaf- 
folding — like the mold at the foundry served through one 
blast and fell back into loose sand — helped to carry an elec- 
tion, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle 

25 with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, 
involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That 
struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make 
their own constitution — upon which he and the Republicans 
have never differed. 

30 9. The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in con- 
nection with Senator Douglas's " care not " policy, constitute 
the piece of machinery, in its present state of advancement. 
This was the third point gained. The working points of that 
machinery are : 



LINCOLN 137 

10. First, That no negro slave, imported as such from 
Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen 
of any state, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. This point is made in order to de- 
prive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that 5 
provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that 
"The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several states." 

11. Secondly, That, ''subject to the Constitution of the 
United States," neither Congress nor a territorial Legislature 10 
can exclude slavery from any United States territory. This 
point is made in order that individual men may fill up the 
territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as prop- 
erty, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the 
institution through all the future. 15 

12. Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual 
slavery in a free state, makes him free, as against the holder, the 
United States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided 
by the courts of any slave state the negro may be forced into 
by the master. This point is made, not to be pressed immedi- 20 
ately ; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed 
by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical con- 
clusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with 
Dred Scott, in the free state of Illinois, every other master may 
lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in 25 
Illinois, or in any other free state. 

13. Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, 
the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and 
mold public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to 
care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows 30 
exactly where we now are ; and partially, also, whither we are 
tending. 

14. It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, 
and run the mind over the string of historical facts already 



138 DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH 

stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious 
than they did when they were transpiring. The people were 
to be left " perfectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." 
What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not 

5 then see. Plainly enough now: it was an exactly fitted niche 
for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in and declare 
the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. 
Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the 
people, voted down? Plainly enough now : the adoption of it 

10 would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. 
Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator's 
individual opinion withheld, till after the Presidential election? 
Plainly enough now : the speaking out then would have dam- 
aged the perfectly free argument upon which the election was 

15 to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on 
the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the 
incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the deci- 
sion? These things look like the cautious patting and petting 
of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is 

20 dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty 
after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others ? 
1 5 . We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adapta- 
tions are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of 
framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been 

25 gotten out at different times and places and by different work- 
men — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance — and 
when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly 
make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mor- 
tises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the 

30 different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and 
not a piece too many or too few • — not omitting even scaffold- 
ing — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the 
frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in — 
in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen 



LINCOLN 139 

and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another 
from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or 
draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. 

16. It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, 
the people of a state as well as territory, were to be left *' per- 5 
fectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." Why mention 
a state? They were legislating for territories, and not for or 
about states. Certainly the people of a state are and ought to 
be subject to the Constitution of the United States ; but why 
is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why 10 
are the people of a territory and the people of a state therein 
lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein 
treated as being precisely the same ? While the opinion of the 
court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the 
separate opinions of all the concurring Judges, expressly declare 1 5 
that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Con- 
gress nor a territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any 
United States territory, they all omit to declare whether or not 
the same Constitution permits a state, or the people of a state, 
to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission ; but who can 20 
be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the 
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a 
state to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and 
Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people 
of a territory, into the Nebraska bill, — I ask, who can be 25 
quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one 
case as it had been in the other? The nearest approach to the 
point of declaring the power of a state over slavery, is made 
by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using 
the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska 30 
act. On one occasion his exact language is, " Except in cases 
where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United 
States, the law of the state is supreme over the subject of 
slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the 



140 DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH 

state is so restrained by the United States Constitution, is left 
an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the 
restraint on the power of the territories, was left open in 
the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have 

5 another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled 
with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Con- 
stitution of the United States does not permit a state to exclude 
slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected 
if the doctrine of '' care not whether slavery be voted down or 

lo voted up " shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give 
promise that such a decision can be maintained when made. 

17. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being 
alike lawful in all the states. Welcome, or unwelcome, such 
decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless 

15 the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and 
overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the 
people of Missouri are on the verge of making their state free, 
and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme 
Court has made Illinois a slave state. To meet and overthrow 

20 the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those 
who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have 
to do. How can we best do it? 

18. There are those who denounce us openly to their own 
friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the 

25 aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. 
They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a httle 
quarrel with the present head of the dynasty ; and that he has 
regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and 
we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great 

30 man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this 
be granted. But "A living dog is better than a dead lion." 
Judge Douglas, if not a dead Hon, for this work, is at least 
a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances 
of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed 



LINCOLN 141 

mission is impressing the " public heart " to care nothing about 
it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's 
superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African 
slave trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade * 
is approaching? He has not said so. Doe^ he really think so? 5 
But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to 
prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into 
the new territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred 
right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And 
unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in 10 
Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole 
question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as 
such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade — how can he 
refuse that trade in that " property " shall be " perfectly free " 
— unless he does it as a protection to the home production? 15 
And as the home producers will probably not ask the protec- 
tion, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition. 

19. Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may right- 
fully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that he may 
rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, 20 
for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any 
particular change, of which he, himself, has given no intima- 
tion? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague 
inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge 
Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can 25 
be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we 
can come together on principle so that our cause may have 
assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no 
adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not now with us — 
he does not pretend to be — he does not promise ever to be. 30 

20. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted 
by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, 
whose hearts .are in the work — who do care for the result. 
Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over 



142 



REPLY TO LINCOLN 



thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the 
single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every 
external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and 
even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and 

5 formed and fought the battle through, under the constant, hot 
fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we 
brave all then, to falter now? — now, when that same enemy 
is wavering, dissevered and belligerent? The result is not 
doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not 

10 fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, 
sooner or later, the victory is sure to come. 

[The foregoing speech was the precursor of the famous Lincoln- 
Doudas Debates. It furnished the texts for those Debates, and 
little new matter on any material issue was added by either Lincoln 
or Douglas. The issues raised in this speech were replied to by 
Douglas in the first joint debate at Ottawa, Illinois, August 2i, 
1858, and re-replied to by Lincoln. In order that the reader may 
gain an idea of the matter and style of the subsequent arguments, 
the following extracts are appended.] 

REPLY BY DOUGLAS 

I. Mr. Lincoln says that this Government cannot endure per- 
manently in the same condition in which it was made by its 
framers — divided into free and slave states. He says that it 

15 has existed for about seventy years thus divided, and yet he 
tells you that it cannot endure permanently on the same prin- 
ciples and in the same relative condition in which our fathers 
made it. Why can it not exist divided into free and slave 
states? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, 

20 Jay, and the great men of that day, made this Government 
divided into free states and slave states, and left each state 
perfectly free to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. 
Why can it not exist on the same principles on which our 



DOUGLAS 143 

fathers made it? They knew when they framed the Constitu- 
tion that in a country as wide and broad as this, with such 
a variety of cHmate, production, and interest, the people 
necessarily required different laws and institutions in different 
localities. They knew that the laws and regulations which 5 
would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire would be un- 
suited to the rice plantations of South Carolina, and they 
therefore provided that each state should retain its own leg- 
islature and its own sovereignty, with the full and complete 
power to do as it pleased within its own limits, in all that was 10 
local and not national. One of the reserved rights of the 
states, was the right to regulate the relations between master 
and servant, on the slavery question. . . . 

2. We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the 
Dred Scott, decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason 15 
that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges 
of citizenship. That is the first and main reason which he 
assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United 
States and its decision. I ask you, are you in favor of con- 
ferring upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship ? 20 
Do you desire to strike out of our State Constitution that 
clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the state, 
and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover your prairies 
with black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful 
state into a free negro colony, in order that when Missouri 25 
abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand emanci- 
pated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an 
equahty with yourselves? If you desire negro citizenship, if 
you desire to allow them to come into the state and settle 
with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality 30 
with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve 
on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lin- 
coln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the 
citizenship of the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro 



144 REPLY TO LINCOLN 

citizenship in any and every form. I believe this Government 
was made on the white basis. I beheve it was made by white 
men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, 
and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men 
5 of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon 
negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. 

3. Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the 
little abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the base- 
ments of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of 

10 Independence, that all men were created equal, and then asks, 
how can you deprive a negro of that equality which God and 
the Declaration of Independence award to him? He and they 
maintain that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God, 
and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If 

15 they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so 
vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief 
that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother ; 
but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, 
and positively deny that, he is my brother or any kin to me 

20 whatever. Lincoln has evidently learned by heart Parson 
Lovejoy's catechism. He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, 
and he is worthy of a medal from Father Giddings and Fred 
Douglass for his aboHtionism. He holds that the negro was 
born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed with 

25 equality by the Almighty, and that no human law can deprive 
him of these rights which were guaranteed to him by the 
Supreme Ruler of the universe. Now, I do not believe that 
the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of the 
white man. If He did, He has been a long time demonstrating 

30 the fact. For thousands of years the negro has been a race 
upon the earth, and during all that time, in all latitudes and 
cHmates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he has been 
inferior to the race which he has there met. He belongs to an 
inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior position. 



DOUGLAS 145 

4. I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior 
he therefore ought to be a slave. By no means can such a 
conclusion be drawn from what I have said. On the contrary, 
I hold that humanity and Christianity both require that the 
negro shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and 5 
every immunity consistent with the safety of the society in 
which he lives. On that point, I presume, there can be no 
diversity of opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our 
inferior and dependent beings every right, every privilege, 
every facility and immunity consistent with the public good. 10 
The question then arises, what rights and privileges are con- 
sistent with the public good? This is a question which each 
state and each territory must decide for itself. ... 

5. Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously 
and rigidly upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, 15 
which guarantees to each state and territory the right to do 

as it pleases on all things, local and domestic, instead of ask- 
ing Congress to interfere, we will continue at peace one with 
another. Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Ken- 
tucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because 20 
their institutions differ? Our fathers intended that our insti- 
tutions should differ. They knew that the North and the South, 
having different climates, productions, and interests, required 
different institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uni- 
formity among the institutions of the different states, is a new 25 
doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the 
framers of this Government. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican 
party set themselves up as wiser than these men who made 
this Government, which has flourished for seventy years under 
the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of 30 
each state to do as it pleased. Under that' principle, we have 
grown from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of 
about thirty millions of people ; we have crossed the Allegheny 
Mountains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the 



146 REJOINDER TO DOUGLAS 

prairie into a garden, and building up churches and schools, 
thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there 
was nothing but savage barbarism. Under that principle we 
have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful on the 
5 face of the earth ; and if we only adhere to that principle, we 
can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, 
and in glory, until the Repubhc of America shall be the North 
Star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the 
civilized world. And why can we not adhere to the great prin- 

10 ciple of self-government, upon which our institutions were 
originally based? I believe that this new doctrine preached 
by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it suc- 
ceeds. They are trying to array all the Northern states in one 
body against the South, to excite a sectional war between the 

15 free states and the slave states, in order that the one or the 
other may be driven to the wall. 

REJOINDER BY LINCOLN 

[Reading from his speech at Peoria, Illinois, of October 16, 
1854.] 

I. " When Southern people tell us they are no more respon- 
sible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. 
When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very 

20 difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can under- 
stand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them 
for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all 
earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do 
as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free 

25 all the slaves, and send them to Liberia — to their own native 
land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that what- 
ever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in 
the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were 
all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten 



LINCOLN 147 

days ; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money 
enough m the world to carry them there in many times ten 
days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us 
as underlings ? Is it quite certain that this betters their condi- 
tion? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate ; yet 5 
the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. 
What next ? Free them, and make them politically and socially 
our equals ? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if 
mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white 
people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and 10 
sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any 
part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, can- 
not be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. 
It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might 
be adopted ; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake 15 
to judge our brethren of the South. 

2. "When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I 
acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly ; and I 
would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their 
fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to 20 
carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws 
are to hang an innocent one. 

3. " But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse 
for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory, than it 
would for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law which 25 
forbids the bringing of slaves /r^?;;? Africa, and that which has 

so long forbid the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be dis- 
tinguished on any moral principle ; and the repeal of the former 
could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter." 

4. Now, Gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater 30 
length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said 

in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This 
is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of 
perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a 



148 REJOINDER TO DOUGLAS 

specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man 
can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say 
here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly 
or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the 
5 states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do 
so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to 
introduce political and social equality between the white and 
the black races. There is a physical difference between the 
two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their 

10 living together upon the footing of perfect equality ; and inas- 
much as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, 
I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I 
belong having the superior position. I have never said any- 
thing to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, 

15 there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled 
to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white 
man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many 

20 respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intel- 
lectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without 
the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my 
equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every 
.living man. . . . Judge Douglas has read from my speech in 

25 Springfield, in which I say that " a house divided against itself 
cannot stand." Does the Judge say it can stand? I don't 
know whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be 
attending to me just now, but I would like to know if it is his 
opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. If he does 

30 think so, then there is a question of veracity, not between him 
and me, but between the Judge and an authority of a some- 
what higher character. 

5. Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for 
Jhe purpose of saying something seriously. I know that the 



LINCOLN 149 

Judge may readily enough agree with me that the maxim which 
was put forth by the Saviour, is true, but he may allege that I 
misapply it; and the Judge has a right to urge that, in my 
application, I do misapply it, and then I have a right to show 
that I do not misapply it. When he undertakes to say that 5 
because I think this nation, so far as the question of slavery is 
concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, I am in 
favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in the various states, 
in all their institutions, he argues erroneously. The great variety 
of the local institutions in the states, springing from differences 10 
in the soil, differences in the face of the country and in the 
climate, are bonds of union. They do not make *' a house 
divided against itself, " but they make a house united. If they 
produce in one section of the country what is called for by the 
wants of another section, and this other section can supply the 15 
wants of the first, they are not matters of discord but bonds of 
union, true bonds of union. But can this question of slavery be 
considered as among these varieties in the institutions of the 
country? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our 
Government, this institution of slavery has not always failed to 20 
be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of dis- 
cord, and an element of division in the house. I ask you to 
consider whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's 
minds shall continue to be the same, after this generation and 
assemblage shall sink into the grave, and another race shall 25 
arise, with the same moral and intellectual development we 
have — whether, if that institution is standing in the same 
irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an 
element of division? If so, then I have a right to say that, in 
regard to this question, the Union is a house divided against 30 
itself ; and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said 
to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty years 
in some states, and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree 
to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in 



150 REJOINDER TO DOUGLAS 

which our fathers originally placed it, — restricting it from the 
new territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off 
its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the 
seal of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest 
5 in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. 
But lately, I think — and in this I charge nothing on the Judge's 
motives — lately, I think, that he, and those acting with him, 
have placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to the 
perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed 

10 upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe we 
shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of 
slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction ; or, on the other hand, that its advocates 

1 5 will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the 
states, old as well as new. North as well as South. Now, I 
believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Wash- 
ington, and Jefferson, and Madison placed it, it would be in the 
course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as 

20 for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction. The crisis would be past and the institution 
might be let alone for a hundred years, if it should live so long, 
in the states where it exists, yet it would be going out of exist- 
ence in the way best for both the black and the white races. . . . 

25 6. Henry Clay, my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for 
whom I fought all my humble life — Henry Clay once said of 
a class of men who would repress all tendencies to liberty and 
ultimate emancipation, that they must, if they would do this, 
go back to the era of our Independence, and muzzle the can- 

30 non which thunders its annual joyous return ; they must blow 
out the moral hghts around us ; they must penetrate the human 
soul and eradicate there the love of liberty ; and then, and not 
till then, could they perpetuate slavery in this country ! To my 
thinking. Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence. 



LINCOLN 151 

doing that very thing in this community, when he says that the 
negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence. Henry 
Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge Douglas is going 
back to the era of our Revolution, and, to the extent of his 
ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 5 
return. When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to 
establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights around us. When 
he says he '' cares not whether slavery is voted down or voted 
up," — that it is a sacred right of self-government, — he is, in 
my judgment, penetrating the human soul and eradicating the 10 
light of reason and the love of liberty in this American people. 
And now I will only say that when, by all these means and appli- 
ances. Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public sentiment 
to an exact accordance with his own views, when these vast 
assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments, when they 15 
shall come to repeat his views and to avow his principles, and 
to say all that he says on these mighty questions, — then it 
needs only the formality of the second Dred Scott decision, 
which he indorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in 
all the states — old as well as new, North as well as South. 20 

My friends, that ends the chapter. The Judge can take his 
half hour. 



THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

Wendell Phillips 

An oration delivered at the centennial anniversary of 
THE Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard College, June 30, 1881 

INTRODUCTION 

Wendell Phillips, orator and agitator, was born in Boston, No- 
vember 29, 1 811. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1831, 
and from the Harvard Law School in 1834. The following year 
he opened a law office in Boston. In 1837 he married Miss Anne 
Terry Greene, through whom he became acquainted with William 
Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist. His wife was always an invalid, 
but to her influence Phillips attributed the decisive impulses of 
his life. Two years prior to his marriage, however, upon seeing 
Garrison dragged by a mob through the streets of Boston, he had 
dedicated his life to the antislavery cause. Shortly after his mar- 
riage, at a meeting held in Faneuil Hall to denounce the murder 
at Alton, Illinois, of an abolitionist named Lovejoy, Phillips made 
the first and most famous of his speeches. Thereafter, public 
speaking constituted his life work. He had already noted the 
estrangement of Boston society on account of his abolition senti- 
ments, and this Faneuil Hall speech completed it ; but having 
a competency through his inheritance and that of his wife, he was 
enabled to give himself up to the promotion of the antislavery cause. 
He became the recognized orator of the abolitionists. He also 
delivered lyceum lectures, from which he derived a considerable 
income, giving his lecture on " The Lost Arts " over two thousand 
times, and receiving therefor $150,000. After the Civil War, other 
reforms (all referred to in his speech in this volume) claimed his 
attention, his attitude being that of the agitator to the end. He 
died February 2, 1884. 

153 



154 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

It is perhaps even yet too early to get a proper historical per- 
spective of Phillips's life. We can truly appreciate his methods 
and influence only by remembering that he was primarily and solely 
an agitator. Whereas Lincoln was conservative and constructive, 
Phillips was radical and destructive. In Lincoln we recognize the 
genius of constructive statesmanship, based on, the past and pres- 
ent, but building for the future ; Phillips was a child of genius, 
not a practical statesman. He was by nature and cultivation a 
fighter and an iconoclast. Poise, perspective, a just estimate of 
men and events are conspicuously absent in his speeches. His 
philosophy of our government was : Educate public opinion through 
agitation against moral and political wrongs, and trust the people 
to do the rest. The antislavery agitation furnished Phillips a field 
for the exercise of his peculiar talents. Once grant that man could 
not rightly hold property in man, and the intellectual part of the 
debate was won ; the rest was purely a moral appeal, and herein 
Phillips was master. Hence it was that other questions, such as 
the currency, labor, and suffrage problems, which he essayed to 
deal with after the war, — questions which he showed no signs of 
having carefully studied, — did not so readily lend themselves to 
settlement by his methods. There is, therefore, all the more praise 
for his oratory that he was listened to eagerly to the end. Throw 
away half of his contention, and there is usually enough left to 
startle the reader into a new train of thought. How much more, 
then, must his words have startled the hearer, under the spell of 
Phillips's delivery ! 

In the history of American oratory the career of Phillips is 
unique. With most men in modern times public speaking is merely 
incident to their careers. During the fifty years of Phillips's active 
life, oratory was his sole profession. Presumably the fifty-seven 
orations and addresses contained in the two-volume series of his 
works, some of the lectures delivered thousands of times, represent 
a far from complete collection of the speeches made by him, — ad- 
dresses on less important occasions and of a more extemporaneous 
nature. In an age of powerful orators. North and South, Phillips 
was distinctively the orator of his time. In ultimate influence he 
was excelled by Webster, so that in the general estimate we must 
concede that Webster was the greater orator ; but in the immediate 
influence over an audience he excelled Webster, — particularly in 
view of the fact that many of Phillips's most successful speeches 



PHILLIPS 155 

were addressed to hostile listeners. And since he ordinarily ad- 
dressed fairly intelligent audiences, it must be inferred that his 
wonderful power was due to subject-matter and style, as well as to 
his manner of delivery. 

In delivery, Phillips set the fashion for the direct, conversational 
style. Though perhaps not possessing the power of mere weight 
that Webster wielded, he improved on Webster's occasional tend- 
ency to a heavy and pompous style. Tall, lithe, and graceful, — 
resembling, by actual measurement, the Greek Apollo, — Phil- 
lips's manner of speaking was, according to all his contempora- 
ries, that of high-bred conversationalism. A contemporary and 
a competent critic, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, says of Phil- 
lips's style : 

" The keynote to the oratory of Wendell Phillips lay in this : 
that it was essentially conversational — the conversational raised 
to its highest power. Perhaps no orator ever spoke with so little 
apparent effort or began so entirely on the plane of his average 
hearers. It was as if he simply repeated, in a little louder tone, 
what he had just been saying to some familiar friend at his elbow. 
The effect was absolutely disarming. Those accustomed to spread- 
eagle eloquence felt, perhaps, a slight sense of disappointment. But 
he held them by his very quietness. The poise of his manly figure, 
the easy grace of his attitude, the thrilling modulation of his per- 
fectly trained voice, the dignity of his gesture, the keen penetration 
of his eye, all aided to keep his hearers in hand. The colloquialism 
was never relaxed ; but it was familiarity without loss of keeping. 
. . . Then, as the argument went on, the voice grew deeper, the 
action more animated, and the sentences came in a long, sonorous 
swell, still easy and graceful, but powerful as the soft stretching of 
a tiger's paw. He could be terse as Carlyle, or his periods could 
be prolonged and cumulative as those of Choate or Evarts : no 
matter ; they carried in either case the same charm." 

The Reverend Carlos Martyn, in his biography of Phillips, says : 

" It was this colloquial quality, infinitely varied yet without 
interruption, which made him the least tedious of speakers. You 
heard him an hour, two hours, three hours — and were unconscious 
of the lapse of time. Indeed, he never seemed to be making a 
speech. It was no oration for the crown, with drum and trumpet 
declamation — only a gentleman talking. He had exactly the man- 
ner for an agitator, it was so entirely without agitation. This 



156 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

repose, fire under snow, enabled him to husband all his electricity 
and flash it out to magnetize the audience." 

Phillips's style of delivery, as was said, set a fashion. It taught 
the value of high-bred conversationalism. Bombast and artificiality, 
rant and roar went out of date, and the era of trained naturalism 
began. In this regard Phillips made every speaker and every audi- 
ence his debtor. 

This conversational style also characterizes his rhetoric and 
diction. His sentences have the variety, the brevity, and the direct- 
ness of ordinary conversation. While the subject-matter of many 
of his speeches has to-day only a historical interest, and though 
they contain many arguments and sentiments utterly at variance 
with our beliefs and with subsequent events, the student of ora- 
tory will find — barring the extreme invective — no better or safer 
models of oratorical composition. The leading qualities of his style 
are his colloquial diction, his strength and energy, his invective, 
and his striking phrases. 

Strength and energy were of course necessary for his work as 
an agitator. Though frequently mistaken, he is never knock-kneed. 
He strikes hard and often. He does not reserve his force for a 
periodic or final climax, but oftentimes every sentence is a climax. 
His thought, as distinguished from what has been described as his 
manner of delivery, is in constant motion. In many of his speeches 
there is no orderly arrangement in argument or exposition, and yet 
the thought is always clear and never lags. His is not the " stately 
flow of eloquence " ; the main thought current is constantly reen- 
forced by unseen springs, deflected by eddies and side currents, 
" boiling and tumioiling," like the Niagara rapids. 

By common acknowledgment Phillips stands at the head of all 
orators, ancient or modern, in his use of invective. He hits right 
and left, sometimes his friends as well as his foes. Webster, Choate, 
Everett, Seward, Kossuth, and even Lincoln are among the men 
whom he attacked. His aforementioned maiden speech, delivered 
at the age of twenty-six, illustrates his power in invective. The 
attorney-general of the commonwealth had spoken in defense of 
the murder by the mob. Two sentences in Phillips's reply are 
as follows : 

"Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which 
place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, 
with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing 



PHILLIPS 157 

to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke 
the recreant American — the slanderer of the dead. . . . Sir, for 
the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers 
of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned 
and swallowed him up." 

Take this example from his speech on " Public Opinion, " which 
also includes his reasons for the use of invective : 

" Men blame us for the bitterness of our language and the per- 
sonality of our attacks. It results from our position. The great 
mass of the people can never be made to stay and argue a long 
question. They must be made to feel it, through the hides of their 
idols. When you have launched your spear into the rhinoceros 
hide of a Webster or Benton, every Whig and Democrat feels it. 
See to it, when Nature has provided you a monster like Webster, 
that you exhibit him — himself a whole menagerie — through the 
country. . . , No man, since the age of Luther, has ever held in 
his hand, so palpably, the destinies and character of a mighty 
people, as did Webster on the seventh of March. He stood like 
the Hebrew prophet betwixt the living and the dead. . . . He gave 
himself up into the lap of the Delilah of slavery, for the mere prom- 
ise of a nomination, and the greatest hour of the age was bartered 
away. It is not often that Providence permits the eyes of twenty 
millions of thinking people to behold the fall of another Lucifer, 
from the very battlements of Heaven, down into that ' lower deep 
of the lowest deep ' of hell." 

Again, he characterizes Webster as " Sir Pertinax McSyco- 
phant," styles Mr. Choate a " political mountebank, " and alludes 
to the " cuckoo lips of Edward Everett." In his lecture on " Idols," 
after making various nations eulogize their great lawyers, he con- 
cludes, " Then New England shouts, ' This is Choate, who made 
it safe to murder, and of whose health thieves asked before they 
began to steal ! ' " 

Contrasted with the calmness and attractiveness of Phillips's 
manner, imagine the effect as these thunderbolts were hurled. Keen 
and graceful as a Damascus blade, his invective, it has been well 
said, lends new meaning to the term " philippic." The Richmond 
Inquire)'^ speaking of him before the Civil War, said, "Wendell 
Phillips is an infernal machine set to music." 

His speeches are full of striking phrases. Prior examples are illus- 
trative. Following are a few others, selected almost at random : 



158 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

" The man who launches a sound argument, who sets on two 
feet a startling fact, and bids it travel from Maine to Georgia, is 
just as certain that in the end he will change the government, as if, 
to destroy the Capitol, he had placed gunpowder under the Senate 
Chamber." 

" The race is rich enough to afford to do without the greatest 
intellects God ever let the Devil buy. Stranded along the past, 
there are a great many dried mummies of dead intellects, which 
the race found too heavy to drag forward." 

" We may be crazy. Would to God he would make us all crazy 
enough to forget for one moment the cold deductions of intellect, 
and let these hearts of ours beat, beat, beat, under the promptings 
of a common humanity." 

" The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day, or 
it is rotten. The living sap of to-day outgrows the dead rind of 
yesterday." 

" Liberty, even in defeat, knows nothing but success." 

" Opinion is not truth, but only truth filtered through the stand- 
point, the disposition, or the mood of the spectator." 

" Marble, gold, and granite are not real ; the only reality is 
an idea." 

To recapitulate : Phillips was the orator of agitation, and from 
this viewpoint he must be judged. He set forces at work, but 
could not direct their future course. His right to be called a great 
orator must therefore rest on the immediate influence he exerted. 
And such tremendous power, according to the uniform testimony 
of his contemporaries, few orators ever wielded. His oratorical 
genius met the demands of a great national crisis, and as the orator 
of that crisis he stands without a model and without a peer. 

Often impatient and mistaken in judgment, Phillips was never- 
theless a man terribly in earnest. To the cause of abolition he 
sacrificed his social position, his early friendships, and his profes- 
sional career ; and he deserves the credit the world ever pays to 
the reformer and the martyr. 

The oration in this volume, " The Scholar in a Republic," was 
the last of Phillips's more notable public addresses. It is sufficiently 
scholarly to fit the occasion, yet withal thoroughly characteristic. 
The doctrine of agitation is preached, and by way of illustration 
of the scholar's remissness in this work of agitation, almost every 



PHILLIPS 159 

subject with which Phillips dealt during his career is touched upon. 
Contrary to his usual custom, this address was carefully written 
out in advance and committed to memory. Its wealth of allusion 
and illustration justifies Curtis's description of Phillips's style as 
" sparkling with richness of illustration, with apt allusion and his- 
toric parallel, with wit and pitiless invective." Colonel Higginson, 
who was in the audience when it was delivered, says that Phillips 
" never seemed more at his ease, more colloquial, more thoroughly 
extemporaneous than in this address. It was, in some respects, the 
most remarkable effort of his life. . . . He held an unwilling audi- 
ence spellbound, while bating absolutely nothing of radicalism." 



■ I . Mr. President and Brothers of the <I> B K : A hundred 
years ago our society was planted, — a slip from the older 
root in Virginia. The parent seed, tradition says, was French, 
— part of that conspiracy for free speech whose leaders prated 
democracy in the salons^ while they carefully held on to the 5 
fleshpots of society by crouching low to kings and their mis- 
tresses, and whose final object of assault was Christianity itself. 
Voltaire gave the watchword, ^'•Ecrasez Virifame,^^ — Crush the 
wretch. No matter how much or how little truth there may be 
in the tradition ; no matter what was the origin or what was 10 
the object of our society, if it had any special one, — both 
are long since forgotten. We stand now simply a representa- 
tive of free, brave, American scholarship. I emphasize Ameri- 
ean scholarship. 

2. In one of those glowing, and as yet unequaled pictures 15 
which Everett drew for us, here and elsewhere, of Revolution- 
ary scenes, I remember his saying that the independence we 
then won, if taken in its literal and narrow sense, was of no 
interest and little value ; but, construed in the fullness of its 
real meaning, it bound us to a distinctive American character 20 
and purpose, to a keen sense of large responsibility, and to a 
generous self-devotion. It is under the shadow of such unques- 
tioned authority that I use the term "American scholarship." 



l6o THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

3. Our society was, no doubt, to some extent, a protest 
against the somber theology of New England, where, a hundred 
years ago, the atmosphere was black with sermons, and where 
religious speculation beat uselessly against the narrowest limits. 

5 4. The first generation of Puritans — though Lowell does 
let Cromwell call them "a small colony of pinched fanatics" 
— included some men, indeed not a few, worthy to walk close 
to Roger Williams and Sir Harry Vane, — the two men deep- 
est in thought and bravest in speech of all who spoke English 

10 in their day, and equal to any in practical statesmanship. Sir 
Harry Vane, in my judgment the noblest human being who 
ever walked the streets of yonder city, — I do not forget 
Franklin or Sam Adams, Washington or Lafayette, Garrison or 
John Brown, — but Vane dwells an arrow's flight above them 

15 all, and his touch consecrated the continent to measureless 
toleration of opinion and entire equality of rights. We are 
told we can find in Plato " all the intellectual life of Europe 
for two thousand years " ; so you can find in Vane the pure 
gold of two hundred and fifty years of American civilization, 

20 with no particle of its dross. Plato would have welcomed him 
to the Academy, and Fenelon kneeled with him at the altar. 
He made Somers and John Marshall possible ; like Carnot, 
he organized victory ; and Milton pales before him in the stain- 
lessness of his record. He stands among English statesmen 

25 preeminently the representative, in practice and in theory, of 
serene faith in the safety of trusting truth wholly to her own 
defense. For other men we walk backward, and throw over 
their memories the mantle of charity and excuse, saying rever- 
ently, " Remember the temptation and the age." But Vane's 

30 ermine has no stain ; no act of his needs explanation or apol- 
ogy ; and in thought he stands abreast of our age, — like pure 
intellect, belongs to all time. 

5. Carlyle said, in years when his words were worth heed- 
ing, "Young men, close your Byron, and open your Goethe," 



PHILLIPS l6l 

If my counsel had weight in these halls, I should say, " Young 
men, close your John Winthrop, and open Sir Harry Vane." 
The generation that knew Vane gave to our Alma Mater for 
a seal the simple pledge, — Veritas. 

6. But the narrowness and poverty of colonial life soon 5 
starved out this element. Harvard was rededicated Christo 

et Ecdesiae ; and up to the middle of the last century, free 
thought in religion meant Charles Chauncey and the Brattle 
Street Church protest, while free thought hardly existed any- 
where else. But a single generation changed all this. A hun- 10 
dred years ago there were pulpits that led the popular move- 
ment ; while outside of religion, and of what called itself 
literature, industry and a jealous sense of personal freedom 
obeyed, in their rapid growth, the law of their natures. English 
common sense and those municipal institutions born of the 15 
common law, and which had saved and sheltered it, grew in- 
evitably too large for the eggshell of English dependence, and 
allowed it to drop off as naturally as the chick does when she 
is ready. There was no change of law, nothing that could 
properly be called revolution, only noiseless growth, the seed 20 
bursting into flower, infancy becoming manhood. It was life, 
in its omnipotence, rending whatever dead matter confined 
it. So have I seen the tiny weeds of a luxuriant Italian spring 
upheave the colossal foundations of the Caesars' palace, and 
leave it a mass of ruins. 25 

7. But when the veil was withdrawn, what stood revealed 
astonished the world. It showed the undreamt power, the 
serene strength of simple manhood, free from the burden and 
restraint of absurd institutions in Church and State. The 
grandeur of this new Western constellation gave courage to 30 
Europe, resulting in the French Revolution, the greatest, the 
most unmixed, the most unstained and wholly perfect blessing 
Europe has had in modern times, unless we may possibly 
except the Reformation and the invention of printing. 



l62. THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

8. What precise effect that giant wave had when it struck 
our shore we can only guess. History is, for the most part, an 
idle amusement, the daydream of pedants and triflers. The 
details of events, the actors' motives, and their relation to each 
5 other are buried with them. How impossible to learn the 
exact truth of what took place yesterday under your next 
neighbor's roof ! Yet we complacently argue and speculate 
about matters a thousand miles off, and a thousand years ago, 
as if we knew them. When I was a student here, my favorite 

10 study was history. The world and affairs have shown me that 
one half of history is loose conjecture, and much of the rest is 
the writer's opinion. But most men see facts, not with their 
eyes, but with their prejudices. Any one familiar with courts 
will testify how rare it is for an honest man to give a perfectly 

15 correct account of a transaction. We are tempted to see facts 
as we think they ought to be, or wish they were. And yet 
journals are the favorite original sources of history. Tremble, 
my good friend, if your sixpenny neighbor keeps a journal. 
" It adds a new terror to death." You shall go down to your 

20 children not in your fair lineaments and proportions, but with 
the smirks, elbows, and angles he sees you with. Journals are 
excellent to record the depth of the last snow and the date 
when the mayflower opens ; but when you come to men's 
motives and characters, journals are the magnets that get near 

25 the chronometer of history and make all its records worthless. 
You can count on the fingers of your two hands all the robust 
minds that ever kept journals. Only milksops and fribbles 
indulge in that amusement, except now and then a respectable 
mediocrity. One such journal nightmares New England annals, 

30 emptied into history by respectable middle-aged gentlemen 
who fancy that narrowness and spleen, like poor wine, mellow 
into truth when they get to be a century old. But you might 
as well cite the Daily Advertise?^ of 1850 as authority on one 
of Garrison's actions. 



PHILLIPS . 163 

9. And, after all, of what value are these minutige? Whether 
Luther's zeal was partly kindled by lack of gain from the sale 
of indulgences, whether Boston rebels were half smugglers and 
half patriots, what matters it now? Enough that he meant to 
wrench the gag from Europe's lips, and that they were content 5 
to suffer keenly, that we might have an untrammeled career. 
We can only hope to discover the great currents and massive 
forces which have shaped our lives ; all else is trying to solve 

a problem of whose elements we know nothing. As the poet- 
historian of the last generation says so plaintively, " History 10 
comes like a beggarly gleaner in the field, after Death, the 
great lord of the domain, has gathered the harvest, and lodged 
it in his garner, which no man may open." 

10. But we may safely infer that French debate and expe- 
rience broadened and encouraged our fathers. To that we 15 
undoubtedly owe, in some degree, the theoretical perfection, 
ingrafted on English practical sense and old forms, which 
marks the foundation of our republic. English civil life, up to 
that time, grew largely out of custom, rested almost wholly on 
precedent. For our model there was no authority in the 20 
record, no precedent on the file ; unless you find it, perhaps, 
partially, in that Long Parliament bill with which Sir Harry 
Vane would have outgeneraled Cromwell, if the shameless 
soldier had not crushed it with his muskets. 

11. Standing on Saxon foundations, and inspired, perhaps, 25 
in some degree by Latin example, we have done what no race, 
no nation, no age, had before dared even to try. We have 
founded a republic on the unlimited suffrage of the millions. 
We have actually worked out the problem that man, as God 
created him, may be trusted with self-government. We have 30 
shown the world that a church without a bishop, and a state 
without a king, is an actual, real, everyday possibility. Look 
back over the history of the race ; where will you find a chap- 
ter that precedes us in that achievement? Greece had her 



l64 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

republics, but they were the republics of a few freemen and 
subjects and many slaves ; and " the battle of Marathon was 
fought by slaves, unchained from the doorposts of their mas- 
ters' houses." Italy had her republics : they were the repub- 
5 lies of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. 
The Swiss republics were groups of cousins. Holland had 
her republic, a republic of guilds and landholders, trusting the 
helm of state to property and education. And all these, which 
at their best held but a million or two within their narrow 
10 limits, have gone down in the ocean of time. 

12. A hundred years ago our fathers announced this sublime, 
and, as it seemed then, foolhardy declaration, — that God in- 
tended all men to be free and equal ; all men, without restric- 
tion, without qualification, without limit. A hundred years 

15 have rolled away since that venturous declaration; and to-day, 
with a territory that joins ocean to ocean, with fifty millions 
of people, with two wars behind her, with the grand achieve- 
ment of having grappled with the fearful disease that threat- 
ened her central life and broken four millions of fetters, the 

20 great Republic, stronger than ever, launches into the second 
century of her existence. The history of the world has no 
such chapter in its breadth, its depth, its significance, or its 
bearing on future history. 

13. What Wy cliff e did for religion, Jefferson and Sam 
25 Adams did for the state, — they trusted it to the people. He 

gave the masses the Bible, the right to think. Jefferson and Sam 
Adams gave them the ballot, the right to -rule. His intrepid 
advance contemplated theirs as its natural, inevitable result. 
Their serene faith completed the gift which the Anglo-Saxon 
30 race makes to humanity. We have not only established a new 
measure of the possibilities of the race ; we have laid on 
streng'th, wisdom, and skill a new responsibility. Grant that 
each man's relations to God and his neighbor are exclusively 
his own concern, and that he is entitled to all the aid that 



PHILLIPS 165 

will make him the best judge of these relations ; that the 
people are the source of all power, and their measureless ca- 
pacity the lever of all progress ; their sense of right the court 
of final appeal in civil affairs ; the institutions they create the 
only ones any power has a right to impose ; that the attempt 5 
of one class to prescribe the law, the religion, the morals, or 
the trade of another is both unjust and harmful, — and the 
Wycliffe and Jefferson of history mean this if they mean any- 
thing, — then, when in 1867 Parliament doubled the English 
franchise, Robert Lowe was right in affirming, amid the cheers 10 
of the House, '' Now the first interest and duty of every 
Englishman is to educate the masses — our masters." Then, 
whoever sees farther than his neighbor is that neighbor's serv- 
ant to lift him to such higher level. Then, power, ability, 
influence, character, virtue, are only trusts with which to serve 15 
our time. 

14. We all agree in the duty of scholars to help those less 
favored in life, and that this duty of scholars to educate the 
mass is still more imperative in a republic, since a republic 
trusts the state wholly to the intelligence and moral sense of 20 
the people. The experience of the last forty years shows every 
man that law has no atom of strength, either in Boston or 
New Orleans, unless, and only so far as, public opinion in- 
dorses it, and that your life, goods, and good name rest on the 
moral sense, self-respect, and law-abiding mood of the men 25 
that walk the streets, and hardly a whit on the provisions of 
the statute book. Come, any one of you, outside of the ranks 

of popular men, and you will not fail to find it so. Easy men 
dream that we live under a government of law. Absurd mis- 
take ! we live under a government of men and newspapers. 30 
Your first attempt to stem dominant and keenly cherished 
opinions will reveal this to you. 

15. But what is education? Of course it is not book learn- 
ing. Book learning does not make five per cent of that mass 



l66 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

of common sense that " runs " the world, transacts its busi- 
ness, secures its progress, trebles its power over nature, works 
out in the long run a rough average justice, wears away the 
world's restraints, and lifts off its burdens. The ideal Yankee, 

5 who " has more brains in his hand than others have in their 
skulls," is not a scholar; and two thirds of the inventions 
that enable France to double the world's sunshine, and make 
Old and New England the workshops of the world, did not 
come from colleges or from minds trained in the schools of 

lo science, but struggled up, forcing their way against giant ob- 
stacles, from the irrepressible instinct of untrained natural 
power. Her workshops, not her colleges, made England, for 
a while, the mistress of the world ; and the hardest job her 
workman had was to make Oxford willing he should work his 

15 wonders. 

16. So of moral gains. As shrewd an observer as Governor 
Marcy, of New York, often said he cared nothing for the whole 
press of the seaboard, representing wealth and education (he 
meant book learning), if it set itself against the instincts of 

20 the people. Lord Brougham, in a remarkable comment on 
the life of Romilly, enlarges on the fact that the great reformer 
of the penal law found all the legislative and all the judicial 
power of England, its colleges and its bar, marshaled against 
him, and owed his success, as all such 7'eforms do, says his 

25 lordship, to public meetings and popular instinct. It would 
be no exaggeration to say that government itself began in 
usurpation, in the feudalism of the soldier and the bigotry of 
the priest ; that liberty and civilization are only fragments of 
rights wrung from the strong hands of wealth and book learn- 

30 ing. Almost all the great truths relating to society were not 
the result of scholarly meditation, " hiving up wisdom with 
each curious year," but have been first heard in the solemn 
protests of martyred patriotism and the loud cries of crushed 
and starving labor. When common sense and the common 



PHILLIPS 167 

people have stereotyped a principle into a statute, then book- 
men come to explain how it was discovered and on what 
ground it rests. The world makes history, and scholars write 
it, — one half truly and the other half as their prejudices blur 
and distort it. 5 

17. New England learned more of the principles of tolera- 
tion from a lyceum committee doubting the dicta of editors 
and bishops when they forbade it to put Theodore Parker 
on its platform ; more from a debate whether the antislavery 
cause should be so far countenanced as to invite one of its 10 
advocates to lecture ; from Sumner and Emerson, George 
William Curtis and Edward Whipple, refusing to speak unless 

a negro could buy his way into their halls as freely as any 
other, — New England has learned more from these lessons 
than she has or could have done from all the treatises on free 15 
printing from Milton and Roger Williams through Locke down 
to Stuart Mill. 

18. Selden, the profoundest scholar of his day, affirmed, 
" No man is wiser for his learning "; and that was only an echo 

of the Saxon proverb, *' No fool is a perfect fool until he learns 20 
Latin." Bancroft says of our fathers, that " the wildest theories 
of the human reason were reduced to practice by a community 
so humble that no statesman condescended to notice it, and 
a legislation without precedent was produced offhand by the 
instincts of the people." And Wordsworth testifies, that, while 25 
German schools might well blush for their subserviency — 

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, 

Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought 

More for mankind at this unhappy day 

Than all the pride of intellect and thought. 30 

19. Wycliffe was, no doubt, a learned man. But the learn- 
ing of his day would have burned him, had it dared, as it did 
burn his dead body afterwards. Luther and Melanchthon were 



l68 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

scholars, but they were repudiated by the scholarship of their 
time, which followed Erasmus, trying " all his life to tread on 
eggs without breaking them" ; he who proclaimed that " peace- 
ful error was better than tempestuous truth." What would 
5 college-graduate Seward weigh, in any scale, against Lincoln, 
bred in affairs? 

^o. Hence, I do not think the greatest things have been 
done for the world by its bookmen. Education is not the chips 
of arithmetic and grammar, — nouns, verbs, and the multipli- 

10 cation table ; neither is it that last year's almanac of dates, or 
series of lies agreed upon, which we so often mistake for his- 
tory. Education is not Greek and Latin and the air pump. 
Still, I rate at its full value the training we get in these walls. 
Though what we actually carry away is little enough, we do 

15 get some training of our powers, as the gymnast or the fen- 
cer does of his muscles ; we go hence also with such general 
knowledge of what mankind has agreed to consider proved 
and settled, that we know where to reach for the weapon when 
we need it. 

20 21. I have often thought the motto prefixed to his college 
library catalogue by the father of the late Professor Peirce, — 
Professor Peirce, the largest natural genius, the man of the 
deepest reach and firmest grasp and widest sympathy, that 
God has given to Harvard in our day, whose presence made 

25 you the loftiest peak and farthest outpost of more than mere 
scientific thought, the magnet who, with his twin, Agassiz, made 
Harvard for forty years the intellectual Mecca of forty states, 
— his father's catalogue bore for a motto, Sa're ubi aliqiiid 
invenias magna pars eruditionis est; and that always seemed 

30 to me to gauge very nearly all we acquired at college, except 
facility in the use of our powers. Our influence in the com- 
munity does not really spring from superior attainments, but 
from this thorough training of faculties, and more even, perhaps, 
from the deference men accord to us. 



PHILLIPS 169 

22. Gibbon says we have two educations, — one from 
teachers, and the other we give ourselves. This last is the real 
and only education of the masses, — one gotten from life, from 
affairs, from earning one's bread ; necessity, the mother of 
invention ; responsibility, that teaches prudence, and inspires 5 
respect for right. Mark the critic out of office ; how reckless 

in assertion, how careless of consequences ; and then the cau- 
tion, forethought, and fair play of the same man charged with 
administration. See that young, thoughtless wife suddenly 
widowed ; how wary and skillful, what ingenuity in guarding her 10 
child and saving his rights ! Any one who studied Europe forty 
or fifty years ago could not but have marked the level of talk 
there, far below that of our masses. It was of crops and rents, 
markets and marriages, scandal and fun. Watch men here, 
and how often you listen to the keenest discussions of right and 15 
wrong, this leader's honesty, that party's justice, the fairness of 
this law, the impolicy of that measure, — lofty, broad topics, 
training morals, widening views. Niebuhr said of Italy, sixty 
years ago, '' No one feels himself a citizen. Not only are the 
people destitute of hope, but they have not even wishes touch- 20 
ing the world's affairs ; and hence all the springs of great and 
noble thoughts are choked up." 

23. In this sense the Fremont campaign of 1856 taught 
Americans more than a hundred colleges ; and John Brown's 
pulpit at Harper's Ferry was equal to any ten thousand ordi- 25 
nary chairs. God lifted a million of hearts to his gibbet, as the 
Roman cross lifted a world to itself in that divine sacrifice of 
two thousand years ago. As much as statesmanship had taught 

in our previous eighty years, that one week of intellectual watch- 
ing and weighing and dividing truth taught twenty millions of 30 
people. Yet how little, brothers, can we claim for bookmen 
in that uprising and growth of 1856 ! And while the first of 
American scholars could hardly find in the rich vocabulary 
of Saxon scorn words enough to express, amid the plaudits of 



170 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

his class, his loathing and contempt for John Brown, Europe 
thrilled to him as proof that our institutions had not lost all 
their native and distinctive life. She had grown tired of our 
parrot note and cold moonlight reflection of older civilizations. 
5 Lansdowne and Brougham could confess to Sumner that they 
had never read a page of their contemporary, Daniel Webster ; 
and you spoke to vacant eyes when you named Prescott, fifty 
years ago, to average Europeans ; while Vienna asked, with 
careless indifference, "Seward, who is he?" But long before 
lo our ranks marched up State Street to the John Brown song, 
the banks of the Seine and of the Danube hailed the new life 
which had given us another and nobler Washington. Lowell 
foresaw him when, forty years ago, he sang of, — 

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne ; 
15 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God, within the shadow, keeping watch above His own. 

And yet the bookmen, as a class, have not yet acknowl- 
edged him. 

24. It is here that letters betray their lack of distinctive 

20 American character. Fifty millions of men God gives us to 
mold ; burning questions, keen debate, great interests trying 
to vindicate their right to be, sad wrongs brought to the bar 
of public judgment, — these are the people's schools. Timid 
scholarship either shrinks from sharing in these agitations, or 

25 denounces them as vulgar and dangerous interference by incom- 
petent hands with matters above them. A chronic distrust of 
the people pervades the book-educated class of the North ; 
they shrink from that free speech which is God's normal school 
for educating men, throwing upon them the grave responsibihty 

30 of deciding great questions, and so lifting them to a higher 
level of intellectual and moral life. Trust the people — the 
wise and the ignorant, the good and the bad — with the gravest 
questions, and in the end you educate the race. At the same 
time you secure, not perfect institutions, not necessarily good 



PHILLIPS 171 

ones, but the best institutions possible while human nature is 
the basis and the only material to build with. Men are edu- 
cated and the State uplifted by allowing all — every one — to 
broach all their mistakes and advocate all their errors. The 
community that will not protect its most ignorant and unpop- 5 
ular member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter 
how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves ! 

25. Anacharsis went into the Archon's court at Athens, 
heard a case argued by the great men of that city, and saw 
the vote by five hundred men. Walking in the streets, some 10 
one asked him, "What do you think of Athenian liberty?" 
"I think," said he, "wise men argue cases, and fools decide 
them." Just what that timid scholar, two thousand years ago, 
said in the streets of Athens, that which calls itself scholarship 
here says to-day of popular agitation, — that it lets wise men 15 
argue questions and fools decide them. But that Athens, where 
fools decided the gravest questions of policy and of right and 
wrong, where property you had gathered wearily to-day might be 
wrung from you by the caprice of the mob to-morrow, — that 
very Athens probably secured, for its era, the greatest amount 20 
of human happiness and nobleness, invented art, and sounded 
for us the depths of philosophy. God lent to it the largest 
intellects, and it flashes to-day the torch that gilds yet the 
mountain peaks of the Old World. While Egypt, the hunker 
conservative of antiquity, where nobody dared to differ from 25 
the priest or to be wiser than his grandfather ; where men 
pretended to be alive, though swaddled in the graveclothes 

of creed and custom as close as their mummies were in 
Hnen, — that Egypt is hid in the tomb it inhabited, and 
the intellect Athens has trained for us digs to-day those 30 
ashes to find out how buried and forgotten hunkerism lived 
and acted. 

26. I knew a signal instance of this disease of scholar's dis- 
trust, and the cure was as remarkable. In boyhood and early 



172 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

life I was honored with the friendship of Lothrop Motley. He 
grew up in the thin air of Boston provincialism, and pined on 
such weak diet. I remember sitting with him once in the State- 
house when he was a member of our legislature. With biting 

5 words and a keen crayon he sketched the ludicrous points in 
the minds and persons of his fellow-members, and tearing up 
the pictures, said scornfully, " What can become of a country 
with such fellows as these making its laws? No safe invest- 
ments ; your good name lied away any hour, and little worth 

10 keeping if it were not." In vain I combated the folly. He 
went to Europe ; spent four or five years. I met him the day 
he landed on his return. As if our laughing talk in the State- 
house had that moment ended, he took my hand with the 
sudden exclamation, " You were all right ; I was all wrong ! 

15 It is a country worth dying for ; better still, worth living and 
working for, to make it all it can be !" Europe made him 
one of the most American of all Americans. Some five years 
later, when he sounded the bugle note in his letter to the 
London Times, some critics who knew his early mood, but not 

20 its change, suspected there might be a taint of ambition in 
what they thought so sudden a conversion. I could testify 
that the mood was five years old, — years before the slightest 
shadow of political expectation had dusked the clear mirror of 
his scholar life. 

25 27. This distrust shows itself in the growing dislike of uni- 
versal suffrage, and the efforts to destroy it made of late by all 
our easy classes. The white South hates universal suffrage ; the 
so-called North distrusts it. Journal and college, social-science 
convention and pulpit, discuss the propriety of restraining it. 

30 Timid scholars tell their dread of it. Carlyle, that bundle of 
sour prejudices, flouts universal suffrage with a blasphemy that 
almost equals its ignorance. See his words : " Democracy will 
prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of 
Jesus Christ." No democracy ever claimed that the vote of 



PHILLIPS 173 

ignorance and crime was as good in any sense as that of wisdom 
and virtue. It only asserts that crime and ignorance have the 
same right to vote that virtue has. Only by allowing that right, 
and so appealing to their sense of justice, and throwing upon 
them the burden of their full responsibility, can we hope ever 5 
to raise crime and ignorance to the level of self-respect. The 
right to choose your governor rests on precisely the same 
foundation as the right to choose your religion ; and no more 
arrogant or ignorant arraignment of all that is noble in the civil 
and religious Europe of the last five hundred years ever came 10 
from the triple crown on the Seven Hills than this sneer of 
the bigot Scotsman. Protestantism holds up its hands in holy 
horror, and tells us that the Pope scoops out the brains of his 
churchmen, saying, " I'll think for you ; you need only obey." 
But the danger is, you meet such popes far away from the 15 
Seven Hills ; and it is sometimes difficult at first to recog- 
nize them, for they do not by any means always wear the 
triple crown. 

28. Evarts and his committee, appointed to inquire why the 
New York City government is a failure, were not wise enough, 20 
or did not dare, to point out the real cause, — the tyranny of 
that tool of the demagogue, the corner grogshop ; but they 
advised taking away the ballot from the poor citizen. But this 
provision would not reach the evil. Corruption does not so 
much rot the masses ; it poisons Congress. Ci-edit Mobilier 25 
and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs ; they 
flaunt at the Capitol. As usual in chemistry, the scum floats 
uppermost. The railway king disdained canvassing for voters : 

" It is cheaper," he said, " to buy legislatures." 

29. It is not the masses who have most disgraced our polit- 30 
ical annals. I have seen many mobs between the seaboard 
and the Mississippi. I never saw or heard of any but well- 
dressed mobs, assembled and countenanced, if not always led 

in person, by respectability and what called itself education. 



174 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

That unrivaled scholar, the first and greatest New England ever 
lent to Congress, signaled his advent by quoting the original 
Greek of the New Testament in support of slavery, and offer- 
ing to shoulder his musket in its defense ; and forty years later 
5 the last professor who went to quicken and lift the moral mood 
of those halls is found advising a plain, blunt, honest witness 
to forge and lie, that this scholarly reputation might be saved 
from wreck. Singular comment on Landor's sneer, that there 
is a spice of the scoundrel in most of our literary men. But 
lo no exacting level of property qualification for a vote would 
have saved those stains. In those cases Judas did not come 
from the unlearned class. 

30. Grown gray over history, Macaulay prophesied twenty 
years ago that soon in these States the poor, worse than another 

15 inroad of Goths and Vandals, would begin a general plunder 
of the rich. It is enough to say that our national funds sell as 
well in Europe as English consols ; and the universal- suffrage 
Union can borrow money as cheaply as Great Britain, ruled, 
one half by Tories, and the other half by men not certain that 

20 they dare call themselves Whigs. Some men affected to scoff 
at democracy as no sound basis for national debt, doubting the 
payment of ours. Europe not only wonders at its rapid pay- 
ment, but the only taint of fraud that touches even the hem 
of our garment is the fraud of the capitalist cunningly adding 

25 to its burdens, and increasing unfairly the value of his bonds; 
not the first hint from the people of repudiating an iota of its 
unjust additions. 

31. Yet the poor and the unlearned class is the one they 
propose to punish by disfranchisement. No wonder the hum- 

30 bier class looks on the whole scene with alarm. They see their 
dearest right in peril. When the easy class conspires to steal, 
what wonder the humbler class draws together to defend itself? 
True, universal suffrage is a terrible power; and with all the 
great cities brought into subjection to the dangerous classes 



PHILLIPS 175 

by grog, and Congress sitting to register the decrees of cap- 
ital, both sides may well dread the next move. Experience 
proves that popular governments are the best protectors of 
life and property. But suppose they were not, Bancroft allows 
that " the fears of one class are no measure of the rights of 5 
another." 

32. Suppose that universal suffrage endangered peace and 
threatened property. There is something more valuable than 
wealth, there is something more sacred than peace. As Hum- 
boldt says, "The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is 10 
a man." To ripen, lift, and educate a man is the first duty. 
Trade, law, learning, science, and rehgion are only the scaf- 
folding wherewith to build a man. Despotism looks down into 
the poor man's cradle, and knows it can crush resistance and 
curb ill will. Democracy sees the ballot in that baby hand; 15 
and selfishness bids her put integrity on one side of those baby 
footsteps and intelhgence on the other, lest her own hearth be 

in peril. Thank God for His method of taking bonds of wealth 
and culture to share all their blessings with the humblest soul 
He gives to their keeping ! The American should cherish as 20 
serene a faith as his fathers had. Instead of seeking a coward 
safety by battening down the hatches and putting men back 
into chains, he should recognize that God places him in this 
peril that he may work out a noble security by concentrating 
all moral forces to lift this weak, rotting, and dangerous mass 25 
into sunlight and health. The fathers touched their highest 
level when, with stout-hearted and serene faith, they trusted 
God that it was safe to leave men with all the rights he gave 
them. Let us be worthy of their blood, and save this sheet 
anchor of the race, — universal suffrage, — God's church, God's 30 
school, God's method of gently binding men into common- 
wealths in order that they may at last melt into brothers. 

33. I urge on college-bred men, that, as a class, they fail in 
republican duty when they allow others to lead in the agitation 



176 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

of the great social questions which stir and educate the age. 
Agitation is an old word with a new meaning. Sir Robert Peel, 
the first English leader who felt himself its tool, defined it to 
be ''marshaling the conscience of a nation to mold its laws." 
5 Its means are reason and argument, — no appeal to arms. Wait 
patiently for the growth of public opinion. That secured, then 
every step taken is taken forever. An abuse once removed never 
reappears in history. The freer a nation becomes, the more 
utterly democratic in its form, the more need of this outside 

10 agitation. Parties and sects laden with the burden of securing 
their own success cannot afford to risk new ideas. " Predom- 
inant opinions," said Disraeli, " are the opinions of a class that 
is vanishing." The agitator must stand outside of organiza- 
tions, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to 

15 save, no object but truth, — to tear a question open and riddle 
it with light. 

34. In all modern constitutional governments, agitation is the 
only peaceful method of progress. Wilberforce and Clarkson^J" 
Rowland Hill and Romilly, Cobden and John Bright, Garrison 

20 and O'Connell, have been the master spirits in this new form 
of crusade. Rarely in this country have scholarly men joined, 
as a class, in these great popular schools, in these social move- 
ments which make the great interests of society " crash and 
jostle against each other like frigates in a storm." 

25 35. It is not so much that the people need us, or will feel 
any lack from our absence. They can do without us. By 
sovereign and superabundant strength they can crush their way 
through all obstacles. 

They will march prospering, — not through our presence ; 
30 Songs will inspirit them, — not from our lyre ; 

Deeds will be done, — while we boast our quiescence, 
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bid aspire. 

The misfortune is, we lose a God-given opportunity of making 
the change an unmixed good, or with the slightest possible 



PHILLIPS 177 

shaie of evil, and are recreant besides to special duty. These 
"agitations" are the opportunities and the means God offers 
us to refine the taste, mold the character, lift the purpose, 
and educate the moral sense of the masses on whose intelligence 
and self-respect rests the State. God furnishes these texts. 5 
He gathers for us this audience, and only asks of our coward 
lips to preach the sermons. 

36. There have been four or five of these great opportuni- 
ties. The crusade against slavery — that grand hypocrisy which 
poisoned the national life of two generations — was one, — a 10 
conflict between two civilizations which threatened to rend the 
Union. Almost every element among us was stirred to take 

a part in the battle. Every great issue, civil and moral, was 
involved, — toleration of opinion, limits of authority, relation 
of citizen to law, place of the Bible, priest and layman, sphere 15 
of woman, question of race. State rights and nationality ; and 
Channing testified that free speech and free printing owed 
their preservation to the struggle. But the pulpit flung the 
Bible at the reformer ; law visited him with its penalties ; so- 
ciety spewed him out of its mouth ; bishops expurgated the 20 
pictures of their Common Prayer Books ; and editors omitted 
pages in republishing English history ; even Pierpont emascu- 
lated his Class-book ; Bancroft remodeled his chapters ; and 
Everett carried Washington through thirty states, remember- 
ing to forget the brave words the wise Virginian had left on 25 
record warning his countrymen of this evil. Amid this battle 
of the giants, scholarship sat dumb for thirty years until immi- 
nent deadly peril convulsed it into action, and colleges, in their 
despair, gave to the army that help they had refused to the 
market place and the rostrum. 30 

37. There was here and there an exception. That earth- 
quake scholar at Concord, whose serene word, like a whisper 
among the avalanches, topples down superstitions and preju- 
dices, was at his post, and with half a score of others, made 



178 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

the exception that proved the rule. Pulpits, just so far as they 
could not boast of culture and nestled closest down among 
the masses, were infinitely braver than the " spires and antique 
towers " of stately collegiate institutions. 
5 38. Then came reform of penal legislation, — the effort to 
make law mean justice, and substitute for its barbarism Chris- 
tianity and civilization. In Massachusetts, Rantoul represents 
Beccaria and Livingston, Mackintosh and Romilly. I doubt if 
he ever had one word of encouragement from Massachusetts 

10 letters ; and with a single exception, I have never seen, till 
within a dozen years, one that could be called a scholar active 
in moving the legislature to reform its code. 

39. The London Times proclaimed, twenty years ago, that 
intemperance produced more idleness, crime, disease, want, 

15 misery, than all other causes put together ; and the West- 
minster Review calls it a " curse that far eclipses every other 
calamity under which we suffer." Gladstone, speaking as prime 
minister, admitted that " greater calamities are inflicted on 
mankind by intemperance than by the three great historical 

20 scourges, — war, pestilence, and famine." De Quincey says, 
" The most remarkable instance of a combined movement in 
society which history, perhaps, will be summoned to notice, is 
that which, in our day, has applied itself to the abatement of 
intemperance. Two vast movements are hurrying into action 

25 by velocities continually accelerated, — the great revolutionary 
movement from political causes, concurring with the great 
physical movement in locomotion and social intercourse from 
the gigantic power of steam. At the opening of such a crisis, 
had no third movement arisen of resistance to intemperate 

30 habits, there would have been ground of despondency as to 
the melioration of the human race." These are English testi- 
monies, where the State rests more than half on bayonets. 
Here we are trying to rest the ballot box on a drunken people. 
"We can rule a great city," said Sir Robert Peel, "America 



PHILLIPS 179 

cannot"; and he cited the mobs of New York as sufficient 
proof of his assertion. 

40. Thoughtful men see that up to this hour the government 
of great cities has been with us a failure ; that worse than the 
dry rot of legislative corruption, than the rancor of party spirit, 5 
than Southern barbarism, than even the tyranny of incorpo- 
rated wealth, is the giant burden of intemperance, making 
universal suffrage a failure and a curse in every great city. 
Scholars who play statesmen, and editors who masquerade as 
scholars, can waste much excellent anxiety that clerks shall get 10 
no office until they know the exact date of Caesar's assassination, 

as well as the latitude of Pekin, and the Rule of Three. But 
while this crusade — the Temperance movement — has been, 
for sixty years, gathering its facts and marshaling its argu- 
ments, rallying parties, besieging legislatures, and putting great 15 
states on the witness stand as evidence of the soundness of its 
methods, scholars have given it nothing but a sneer. But if 
universal suffrage ever fails here for a time, — permanently it 
cannot fail, — it will not be incapable civil service, nor an 
ambitious soldier, nor Southern vandals, nor venal legislatures, 20 
nor the greed of wealth, nor boy statesmen rotten before they 
are ripe, that will put universal suffrage into eclipse ; it will be 
rum intrenched in great cities and commanding every vantage 
ground. 

41. Social science affirms that woman's place in society 25 
marks the level of civilization. From its twilight in Greece, 
through the Italian worship of the Virgin, the dreams of chiv- 
alry, the justice of the civil law, and the equality of French 
society, we trace her gradual recognition ; while our common 
law, as Lord Brougham confessed, was, with relation to women, 30 
the opprobrium of the age and of Christianity. For forty years 
plain men and women, working noiselessly, have washed away 
that opprobrium ; the statute books of thirty states have been 
remodeled, and woman stands to-day almost face to face with 



l80 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

her last claim, — the ballot. It has been a weary and thank- 
less, though successful, struggle. But if there be any refuge 
from that ghastly curse, — the vice of great cities, before which 
social science stands palsied and dumb, — it is in this more 
5 equal recognition of woman. If, in this critical battle for uni- 
versal suffrage, — our fathers' noblest legacy to us, and the 
greatest trust God leaves in our hands, — there be any weapon, 
which once taken from the armory will make victory certain, 
it will be, as it has been in art, literature, and society, sum- 
10 moning woman into the political arena. 

42. But at any rate, up to this point, putting suffrage aside, 
there can be no difference of opinion; everything born of 
Christianity, or allied to Grecian culture or Saxon law, must 
rejoice in the gain. The literary class, until within half a 

15 dozen years, has taken note of this great uprising only to 
fling every obstacle in its way. The first glimpse we get of 
Saxon blood in history is that line of Tacitus in his Germany 
which reads, "In all grave matters they consult their women." 
Years hence, when robust Saxon sense has flung away Jewish 

20 superstition and Eastern prejudice, and put under its foot fas- 
tidious scholarship and squeamish fashion, some second Tacitus, 
from the valley of the Mississippi will answer to him of the 
Seven Hills, " In all grave questions we consult our women." 

43. I used to think that then we could say to letters as 
25 Henry of Navarre wrote to the Sir Philip Sidney of his realm, 

Crillon, "the bravest of the brave," "We have conquered at 
Arques, et tu n'y etais pas, Crillon,^'' — "You were not there, 
my Crillon." But a second thought reminds me that what 
claims to be literature has been always present in that battle- 
30 field, and always in the ranks of the foe. 

44. Ireland is another touchstone which reveals to us how 
absurdly we masquerade in democratic trappings while we have 
gone to seed in Tory distrust of the people ; false to every 
duty, which, as eldest born of democratic institutions, we owe 



PHILLIPS l8l 

to the oppressed, and careless of the lesson every such move- 
ment may be made in keeping public thought clear, keen, and 
fresh as to principles which are the essence of our civilization, 
the groundwork of all education in republics. 

45. Sydney Smith said, "The moment Ireland is mentioned 5 
the English seem to bid adieu to common sense, and to act 
with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots. . . . 
As long as the patient will suffer, the cruel will kick. ... If 
the Irish go on withholding and forbearing, and hesitating 
whether this is the time for discussion or that is the time, they 10 
will be laughed at another century as fools, and kicked for 
another century as slaves." Byron called England's union 
with Ireland "the union of the shark with his prey." Ben- 
tham's conclusion, from a survey of five hundred years of 
European history, was, " Only by making the ruling few uneasy 15 
can the oppressed many obtain a particle of rehef." Edmund 
Burke — Burke, the noblest figure in the Parliamentary history 

of the last hundred years, greater than Cicero in the Senate 
and almost Plato in the Academy — Burke affirmed, a century 
ago, " Ireland has learned at last that justice is to be had from 20 
England only when demanded at the sword's point." And a 
century later, only last year, Gladstone himself proclaimed in 
a public address in Scotland, " England never concedes any- 
thing to Ireland except when moved to do so by fear." 

46. When we remember these admissions, we ought to clap 25 
our hands at every fresh Irish " outrage," as a parrot press 
styles it, aware that it is only a far-off echo of the musket shots 
that rattled against the Old State House on the 5 th of March, 
1770, and of the warwhoop that made the tiny spire of the 
Old South tremble when Boston rioters emptied the three India 30 
teaships into the sea, — welcome evidence of living force and 
rare intelligence in the victim, and a sign that the day of 
deliverance draws each hour nearer. Cease ringing endless 
changes of eulogy on the men who made North's Boston 



l82 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

port bill a failure, while every leading journal sends daily over 
the water wishes for the success of Gladstone's copy of the bill 
for Ireland. If all rightful government rests on consent, — if, 
as the French say, you "can do almost anything with a bayonet 

5 except sit on it," — be at least consistent, and denounce the 
man who covers Ireland with regiments to hold up a despotism 
which, within twenty months, he has confessed rests wholly 
upon fear. 

47. Then note the scorn and disgust with which we gather 

10 up our garments about us and disown the Samuel Adams and 
William Prescott, the George Washington and John Brown, of 
St. Petersburg, the spiritual descendants, the living representa- 
tives of those who make our history worth anything in the 
world's annals, — the Nihilists. 

15 48. Nihilism is the righteous and honorable resistance of 
a people crushed under an iron rule. Nihilism is evidence of 
life. When "order reigns in Warsaw," it is spiritual death. 
Nihilism is the last weapon of victims choked and manacled 
beyond all other resistance. It is crushed humanity's only 

20 means of making the oppressor tremble. God means that un- 
just power shall be insecure ; and every move of the giant, 
prostrate in chains, whether it be to lift a single dagger, or stir 
a city's revolt, is a lesson in justice. One might well tremble 
for the future of the race if such a despotism could exist with- 

25 out provoking the bloodiest resistance. I honor Nihilism, since 
it redeems human nature from the suspicion of being utterly 
vile, made up only of heartless oppressors and contented slaves. 
Every line in our history, every interest of civilization, bids us 
rejoice when the tyrant grows pale and the slave rebellious. 

30 We cannot but pity the suffering of any human being, however 
richly deserved ; but such pity must not confuse our moral 
sense. Humanity gains. Chatham rejoiced when our fathers 
rebelled. For every single reason they alleged, Russia counts 
a hundred, each one ten times bitterer than any Hancock or 



PHILLIPS 183 

Adams could give. Samuel Johnson's standing toast in Oxford 
port was, " Success to the first insurrection of slaves in Jamaica," 
— a sentiment Southey echoed. " Eschew cant," said that old 
moralist. But of all the cants that are canted in this cant- 
ing world, though the cant of piety may be the worst, the 5 
cant of Americans bewailing Russian Nihilism is the most 
disgusting. 

49. I know what reform needs, and all it needs, in a land 
where discussion is free, the press untrammeled, and where 
public halls protect debate. There, as Emerson says, "What 10 
the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up 
with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of 
public opinion, and the day after is the charter of nations." 
Lieber said, in 1870, " Bismarck proclaims to-day in the Diet the 
very principles for which we were hunted and exiled fifty years 1 5 
ago." Submit to risk your daily bread, expect social ostracism, 
count on a mob now and then, "be in earnest, don't equivocate, 
don't retreat a single inch," and you will finally be heard. 

For Humanity sweeps onward, where to-day the martyr stands 
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands ; 20 

Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 

In such a land he is doubly and trebly guilty who, except 
in some most extreme case, disturbs the sober rule of law 25 
and order. 

50. But such is not Russia. In Russia there is no press, no 
debate, no explanation of what government does, no remon- 
strance allowed, no agitation of public issues. Dead silence, 
like that which reigns at the summit of Mont Blanc, freezes 30 
the whole empire, long ago described as " sl despotism tempered 
by assassination." Meanwhile, such despotism has unsettled the 
brains of the ruling family, as unbridled power doubtless made 
some of the twelve Caesars insane, — a madman sporting with 



l84 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

the lives and comfort of a hundred millions of men. The young 
girl whispers in her mother's ear, under a ceiled roof, her pity 
for a brother knouted and dragged half dead into exile for his 
opinions. The next week she is stripped naked and flogged 

5 to death in the public square. No inquiry, no explanation, 
no trial, no protest ; one dead uniform silence, — the law of 
the tyrant. Where is there ground for any hope of peaceful 
change? Where the fulcrum upon which you can plant any 
possible lever? 

10 51. Macchiavelli's sorry picture of poor human nature would 
be fulsome flattery if men could keep still under such oppres- 
sion. No, no ! in such a land dynamite and the dagger are the 
necessary and proper substitutes for Faneuil Hall and the Daily 
Advertiser. Anything that will make the madman quake in his 

15 bedchamber, and rouse his victims into reckless and desperate 
resistance. This 'is the only view an American, the child of 
1620 and 1776, can take of NihiHsm. Any other unsettles and 
perplexes the ethics of our civilization. 

52. Born within sight of Bunker Hill, in a commonwealth 
20 which adopts the motto of Algernon Sidney, si(b libertate 

qiiiefem (" accept no peace without liberty ") ; son of Harvard, 
whose first pledge was "Truth"; citizen of a republic based 
on the claim that no government is rightful unless resting on 
the consent of the people, and which assumes to lead in assert- 
25 ing the rights of humanity, — I at least can say nothing else 
and nothing less ; no, not if every tile on Cambridge roofs 
were a devil hooting my words ! 

53. I shall bow to any rebuke from those who hold Chris- 
tianity to command entire non-resistance. But criticism from 

30 any other quarter is only that nauseous hypocrisy which, stung 
by threepenny tea tax, piles Bunker Hill with granite and 
statues, prating all the time of patriotism and broadswords, 
while, like another Pecksniff, it recommends a century of dumb 
submission and entire non-resistance to the Russians, who for 



PHILLIPS 185 

a hundred years have seen their sons by thousands dragged to 
death or exile, no one knows which, in this worse than Venetian 
mystery of police, and their maidens flogged to death in the 
market place, and who share the same fate if they presume to 
ask the reason why. 5 

54. ♦' It is unfortunate," says Jefferson, " that the efforts 
of mankind to secure the freedom of which they have been 
deprived, should be accompanied with violence and even with 
crime. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for 
the end." Pray fearlessly for such ends; there is no risk! 10 
" Men are all tories by nature," says Arnold, " when tolerably 
well off; only monstrous injustice and atrocious cruelty can 
rouse them." Some talk of the rashness of the uneducated 
classes. Alas ! ignorance is far oftener obstinate than rash. 
Against one French revolution — that scarecrow of the ages — 15 
weigh Asia, " carved in stone," and a thousand years of Europe, 
with her half-dozen nations meted out and trodden down to 
be the dull and contented footstools of priests and kings. The 
customs of a thousand years ago are the sheet anchor of the 
passing generation, so deeply buried, so fixed, that the most 20 
violent efforts of the maddest fanatic can drag it but a hand's- 
breadth. 

55. Before the war, Americans were like the crowd in that 
terrible hall of EbUs which Beckford painted for us, — each 
man with his hand pressed on the incurable sore in his bosom, 25 
and pledged not to speak of it ; compared with other lands, 
we were intellectually and morally a nation of cowards. 

56. When I first entered the Roman States, a customhouse 
ofificial seized all my French books. In vain I held up to him 

a treatise by Fenelon, and explained that it was by a Catholic 30 
archbishop of Cambray. Grufily he answered, " It makes no 
difference ; // is French^ As I surrendered the volume to his 
remorseless grasp, I could not but honor the nation which had 
made its revolutionary purpose so definite that despotism feared 



l86 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC 

its very language. I only wished that injustice and despotism 
everywhere might one day have as good cause to hate and to 
fear everything American. 

57. At last that disgraceful seal of slave complicity is broken. 
5 Let us inaugurate a new departure, recognize that we are afloat 

on the current of Niagara, eternal vigilance the condition of 
our safety, that we are irrevocably pledged to the world not to 
go back to bolts and bars, — could not if we would, and would 
not if we could. Never again be ours the fastidious scholarship 

10 that shrinks from rude contact with the masses. Very pleasant 
it is to sit high up in the world's theater and criticise the 
ungraceful struggles of the gladiators, shrug one's shoulders at 
the actors' harsh cries, and let every one know that but for 
" this villainous saltpeter you would yourself have been a 

15 soldier." But Bacon says, " In the theater of man's life, God 
and his angels only should be lookers-on." "Sin is not taken 
out of man as Eve was out of Adam, by putting him to sleep." 
"Very beautiful," said Richter, "is the eagle when he floats 
with outstretched wings aloft in the clear blue ; but sublime 

20 when he plunges down through the tempest to his eyrie on the 
cliff, where his unfledged young ones dwell and are starving." 
Accept proudly the analysis of Fisher Ames: "A monarchy is 
a man-of-war, stanch, iron-ribbed, and resistless when under 
full sail ; yet a single hidden rock sends her to the bottom. 

25 Our republic is a raft hard to steer, and your feet always wet ; 
but nothing can sink her." If the Alps, piled in cold and 
silence, be the emblem of despotism, we joyfully take the 
ever-restless ocean for ours, — only pure because never still. 

58. Journalism must have more self-respect. Now it praises 
30 good and bad men so indiscriminately that a good word from 

nine tenths of our journals is worthless. In burying our Aaron 
Burrs, both political parties — in order to get the credit of 
magnanimity — exhaust the vocabulary of eulogy so thoroughly 
that there is nothing left with which to distinguish our John 



PHILLIPS 187 

Jays. The love of a good name in life and a fair reputation to 
survive us — that strong bond to well-doing — is lost where 
every career, however stained, is covered with the same ful- 
some flattery, and where what men say in the streets is the 
exact opposite of what they say to each other. De mortuis nil 5 
nisi bonu7?i most men translate, " Speak only good of the dead." 
I prefer to construe it, " Of the dead say nothing unless you 
can tell something good." And if the sin and the recreancy 
have been marked and far-reaching in their evil, even the 
charity of silence is not permissible. 10 

59. To be as good as our fathers we must be better. They 
silenced their fears and subdued their prejudices, inaugurating 
free speech and equality with no precedent on the file. Europe 
shouted " Madmen ! " and gave us forty years for the ship- 
wreck. With serene faith they persevered. Let us rise to their 15 
level. Crush appetite, and prohibit temptation if it rots great 
cities. Intrench labor in sufficient bulwarks against that wealth 
which, without the tenfold strength of modern incorporation, 
wrecked the Grecian and Roman States ; and with a sterner 
effort still, summon women into civil life as reenforcement to 20 
our laboring ranks in the effort to make our civilization a 
success. 

60. Sit not, like the figure on our silver coin, looking ever 
backward. 

New occasions teach new duties ; time makes ancient good un- 
couth ; 25 

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of 
Truth. 

Lo ! before us gleam her camp fires ! we ourselves must Pil- 
grims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate 
winter sea, 

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. 



THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDU- 
CATED MEN' 

George William Curtis 

An oration delivered at the Commencement of Union 
College, June 27, 1877. 

INTRODUCTION 

George William Curtis, author, orator, and publicist, was born 
in Providence, Rhode Island, February 24, 1824. In 1839 he 
went to New York and became a clerk in a mercantile house. In 
1842 he and his elder brother joined the Brook Farm Community, 
at West Roxbury, Massachusetts. After remaining there a year 
and a half he went to Concord and spent another eighteen months 
with a farmer, dividing his time between farming and the society 
of Emerson, Hawthorne, and other noted men. In place of a col- 
lege course Curtis spent the next four years in travel abroad. He 
lived first in Italy and Germany, and afterwards traveled in Egypt 
and Syria. Upon his return, he published the Howadji books, 
which gave him some reputation as a writer. Later there came 
from his pen The Potiphar Papers^ Prue and I^ and Trumps. In 
1850 he joined the editorial staff of the New York Tributie, and 
in 1852 became a partner in the firm that established Putnam's 
Monthly. When this firm failed, Curtis assumed a large indebted- 
ness for which he was not legally bound, applied his private fortune 
toward meeting the firm's obligations, and for sixteen years devoted 
to that purpose the money earned by lecturing. In 1854 he began 
his " Easy Chair" papers in Haj'per's Magazine., and later became 
the leading editorial writer for Harper's Weekly. 

1 Copyright, 1893, hy Harper & Brothers. 
189 



IQO THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

In 1856 Curtis delivered an oration before the literary societies 
of Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Connecticut, on " The 
Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the Times." This 
marks the beginning of his connection with public affairs. The 
same year he spoke in the presidential campaign in favor of the 
Republican candidates. In i860, 1864, and 1876, he was a dele- 
gate to the Republican national conventions. In 1864 he was an 
unsuccessful candidate for Congress. In 1869 he declined the 
Republican nomination for secretary of state of New York, and 
in 1876 he also declined the position of minister to England. In 
1 87 1 he became identified with the civil service as a member of 
the commission appointed to draw up rules for its regulation. He 
later became president of the National Civil Service Reform 
League, and for twenty years he wrote and spoke in its interests. 
The cause of civil service reform owes more to Curtis than to any 
other one man. One large volume of his orations and addresses is 
devoted entirely to this subject. In politics he was exceptionally 
independent and fearless. He was among the first, as he was the 
leader, of those who broke away from party affiliations in 1884 
and supported Cleveland, as against Blaine, for the presidency, 
and were satirically denominated " Mugwumps." As a leader of 
public opinion Curtis exerted an influence which is probably un- 
paralleled in our history. He died August 31, 1892. 

In an article entitled " George William Curtis : Friend of the 
Republic," McClure's Magazine^ October, 1904, Honorable Carl 
Schurz says : 

" However effective his regular journalistic communion with 
the public was, the most valuable and impressive of his teachings 
were contained in that grand series of orations and occasional 
addresses which not only placed him in the first rank of the great 
orators of his time, but also constitute his finest contributions to 
American literature — addresses and orations delivered at college 
commencements, alumni reunions, the unveiling of monuments, 
memorial services in honor of statesmen, or soldiers, or men of 
letters, or public meetings held to shape, or express, or stimulate 
popular sentiment on some matter of great public concern. Noth- 
ing could surpass the splendid architecture of their argument and 
the wealth and chaste beauty of their ornamentation. In what 
gorgeous colors he would paint the glories of his country ! How 



CURTIS 191 

he would revel in the memories of the heroic birth of the republic 
and in extolling the grand and eternal significance of the principles 
which constituted its reason of being and its promise to all man- 
kind ! With what lofty sternness he would castigate those whose 
mean spirit failed to appreciate those principles ! How vividly 
he would make to gleam and radiate the virtues and high aims 
and achievements of the great men who were the subjects of his 
eulogy ! How magnificently his noble manhood and his American 
citizen's pride shone forth when he defined to the youth of his 
generation the nature of true patriotism, — a patriotism that em- 
braced all the human kind and had its source in the purest moral 
sense and in the profoundest and most courageous convictions of 
right and duty in the service of the highest ideals ! " 

Though Curtis was primarily a man of letters, he is, as Mr. Schurz 
says, best known now as a lecturer and an orator. Among a galaxy 
of contemporary lecturers such as Emerson, Phillips, and Beecher, 
Curtis was in constant demand for the lyceum platform, and was 
one of the most accomplished and polished speakers of his times. 
Before and during the war he spoke chiefly on the question of 
slavery ; later, on civil service reform and occasional topics. From 
the very first his addresses were characterized by those rhetorical 
excellencies which make them, as he himself said of Burke's 
speeches, " not only historical events, but splendid possessions of 
literature." If he has not the energy and pugnacity of Phillips> 
or the prevailing emotionalism of Grady, he has a poise and finish 
that excel the one and equal the other. 

While Curtis was a master in extemporaneous oratory, his set 
speeches were prepared with great care. Suggestions as to his 
methods may be gleaned from the following extracts of a letter 
written by him and published in Smith's Reading and Speaking 
(p. 125): 

" The young orator must not be afraid to take the same pains 
with the form of his oration, which is largely the oration, that the 
painter takes with his color, his drawing, his aerial perspective, 
and his chiaroscuro ; and the poet with his rhythm and his words. 
Care and taste, the felicitous choice of phrase and happy cadence, 
do not result in disagreeable artificiality in an oration more than 
in a poem or picture. . . . The greatest orations have probably 
been most thoughtfully prepared. But this does not prevent a 
quick and fortunate use of unforeseen incidents and the remarks 



192 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

of others, . . . [The great orators] did not trust to the ' spur of 
the moment,' but relied upon thought and knowledge, and careful 
cultivation of the forms of expression." 

In delivery, Curtis's manner was well adapted to the intelligent 
audiences he usually addressed. With a fine form and pleasing 
bearing, a deep, musical, and well-modulated voice, using few but 
expressive gestures, he " seemed absorbed by the expression of his 
thought, unheeding the eyes, seeking the judgment and the heart, 
of his auditors." 

The following oration on " The Public Duty of Educated Men" 
is not notably better than many of the other orations and addresses 
given by Curtis during the forty years of his- active life, but it does 
represent, in perhaps the most comprehensive form, the sum of his 
political philosophy, — that educated and consecrated intelligence 
is the hope of this Republic, — and pleads the responsibilities and 
duties of that class of which he himself was a most distinguished 
type, — the Scholar in Politics. 



I. It is with diffidence that I rise to add any words of mine 
to the music of these younger voices. This day, Gentlemen of 
the Graduating Class, is especially yours. It is a- day of high 
hope and expectation ; and the councils that fall from older 
5 lips should be carefully weighed, lest they chill the ardor of a 
generous enthusiasm, or stay the all-conquering faith of youth 
that moves the world. To those who, constantly and actively 
engaged in a thousand pursuits, are still persuaded that edu- 
cated intelligence molds states and leads mankind, no day in 
lo the year is more significant, more inspiring, than this of the 
^^<»4A College Commencement. It matters not at what college it may 
be celebrated. It is the same at all. We stand here indeed 
beneath these eoWege walls, beautiful for situation, girt at this 
moment with the perfumed splendor of midsummer, and full 
15 of tender memories and joyous associations to those who hear 
^ me. But on this day, and on other days, at a hundred other 

^'iT-i colleges, this summer sun beholds the same spectacle of eager 
and earnest throngs. The faith that we hold, they also cherish. 



CURTIS 193 

It is the same God that is worshiped at the different altars. 
It is the same benediction that descends upon every reverent 
head and believing heart. In this annual celebration of faith 
in the power and the responsibility of educated men, all the 
^**colleges in the country, in whatever state, of whatever age, of 5 
whatever religious sympathy or direction, form but one great 
Ume« University. 

2. But the interest of the day is not that of mere study, of 
sound scholarship as an end, of good books for their own sake, 
but of education as a power in human affairs ; of educated 10 
men as an influence in the commonwealth. "Tell me," said 
an American scholar of Goethe, the many-sided, " what did he 
ever do for the cause of man?" The scholar, the poet, the 
philosopher, are men among other men. From these unavoid- 
able social relations spring opportunities and duties. How do 15 
they use them? How do they discharge them? Does the 
scholar show in his daily walk that he has studied the wisdom 

of ages in vain ? Does the poet sing of angelic purity and lead 
an unclean life ? Does the philosopher peer into other worlds, 
and fail to help this world upon its way? Four years before 20 
our Civil War, the same scholar — it was Theodore Parker — 
said sadly : " If our educated men had done their duty, we 
should not now be in the ghastly condition we bewail." The 
theme of to-day seems to me to be prescribed by the occasion. 
It is the festival of the departure of a body of educated young 25 
men into the world. This company of picked recruits marches 
out with beating drums and flying colors to join the army. We 
who feel that our fate is gracious which allowed a liberal train- 
ing, are here to welcome and to advise. On your behalf, Mr. 
President and Gentlemen, with your authority, and with all my 30 
heart, I shall say a word to them and to you of the public duty 
of educated men in America. 

3. I shall not assume, Gentlemen Graduates, for I know 
that it is not so, that what Dr. Johnson says of the teachers of 



194 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

Rasselas and the princes of Abyssinia can be truly said of you 
in your happy valley — " The sages who instructed them told 
them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and described 
all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity where discord 
5 was always raging, and where man preyed upon man." The 
sages who have instructed you are American citizens. They 
know that patriotism has its glorious opportunities and its 
sacred duties. They have not shunned the one, and they have 
well performed the other. In the sharpest stress of our awful 
lo conflict, a clear voice of patriotic warning was heard from these 
peaceful academic shades ; the voice of the venerated teacher 
whom this University still freshly deplores, drawing, from the 
wisdom of experience stored in his ample learning, a lesson of 
startHng cogency and power from the history of Greece for the 
15 welfare of America. 

4. This was the discharge of a public duty by an educated 
man. It illustrated an indispensable condition of a progressive 
republic : the active, practical interest in politics of the most 
intelligent citizens. Civil and religious liberty in this country 
20 can be preserved only through the agency of our political insti- 
tutions. But those institutions alone will not suffice. It is not 
the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosper- 
ous voyage. American institutions presuppose not only general 
honesty and intelligence in the people, but their constant and 
,25 direct application to public affairs. Our system rests upon all 
the people, not upon a part of them, and the citizen who 
evades his share of the burden betrays his fellows. Our safety 
lies not in our institutions but in ourselves. It was under the 
forms of the republic that Julius Caesar made himself emperor 
30 of Rome. It was by professing reverence for the national tradi- 
tions that James II was destroying rehgious liberty in England. 
To labor, said the old monks, is to pray. What we earnestly 
desire we earnestly toil for. That she may be prized more 
truly, heaven-eyed Justice flies from us, like the Tartar maid 



CURTIS 195 

from her lovers, and she yields her embrace at last only to the 
swiftest and most daring of her pursuers. 

5. By the words "public duty" I do not necessarily mean 
official duty, although it may include that. I mean simply that 
constant and active practical participation in the details of poli- 5 
tics without which, upon the part of the most intelligent citizens, 
the conduct of public affairs falls under the control of selfish 
and ignorant, or crafty and venal men. I mean that personal 
attention which, as it must be incessant, is often wearisome 
and even repulsive, to the details of politics, attendance at 10 
meetings, service upon committees, care and trouble and 
expense of many kinds, patient endurance of rebuffs, chagrins, 
ridicules, disappointments, defeats — in a word, all those duties 
and services which, when selfishly and meanly performed, 
stigmatize a man as a mere politician; but whose constant, 15 
honorable, intelligent, and vigilant performance is the gradual 
building, stone by stone, and layer by layer, of that great 
temple of self-restrained liberty which all generous souls mean 
that our government shall be. 

6. PubHc duty in this country is not discharged, as is so 20 
often supposed, by voting. A man may vote regularly, and 
still fail essentially of his political duty, as the Pharisee who 
gave tithes of all that he possessed, and fasted three times in 
the week, yet lacked the very heart of religion. When an 
American citizen is content with voting merely, he consents 25 
to accept what is often a doubtful alternative. His first duty 

is to help shape the alternative. This, which was formerly less 
necessary, is now indispensable. In a rural community such as 
this country was a hundred years ago, whoever was nominated 
for office was known to his neighbors, and the consciousness 30 
of that knowledge was a conservative influence in determining 
nominations. But in the local elections of the great cities of 
to-day, elections that control taxation and expenditure, the 
mass of the voters vote in absolute ignorance of the candidates. 



196 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

The citizen who supposes that he does all his duty when he 
votes, places a premium upon poHtical knavery. Thieves wel- 
come him to the polls and offer him a choice, which he has 
done nothing to prevent, between Jeremy Diddler and Dick 

5 Turpin. The party cries, for which he is responsible, are, 
" Turpin and Honesty ! " '' Diddler and Reform ! " And within 
a few years, as a result of this indifference to the details of 
pubhc duty, the most powerful politician in the Empire State 
of the Union was Jonathan Wild the Great, the captain of a 

10 band of plunderers. I know it is said that the knaves have taken 
the honest men in a net, and have contrived machinery which 
will inevitably grind only the grist of rascals. The answer is, 
that when honest men did once what they ought to do always, 
the thieves were netted and their machine was broken. To say 
LL5 that in this country the rogues must rule, is to defy history 
and to despair of the republic. It is to repeat the imbecile 
executive cry of sixteen years ago, " Oh, dear ! the states have 
no right to go "; and, " Oh, dear ! the nation has no" right to 
help itself." Let the Union, stronger than ever and unstained 

20 with national wrong, teach us the power of patriotic virtue — 
and Ludlow Street jail console those who suppose that American 
politics must necessarily be a game of thieves and bulHes. 

7. If ignorance and corruption and intrigue control the 
primary meeting, and manage the convention, and dictate the 

25 nomination, the fault is in the honest and intelligent workshop 
and office, in the library and the parlor, in the church and the 
school. When they are as constant and faithful to their polit- 
ical rights as the slums and the grogshops, the pool rooms and 
the kennels; when the educated, industrious, temperate, thrifty 

30 citizens are as zealous and prompt and unfailing in political 
activity as the ignorant and venal and mischievous, or when it 
is plain that they cannot be roused to their duty, then, but not 
until then — if ignorance and corruption always carry the day 
— there can be no honest question that the republic has failed. 



CURTIS 197 

But let us not be deceived. While good men sit at home, not 
knowing that there is anything to be done, nor caring to know ; 
cultivating a feeling that politics are tiresome and dirty, and 
politicians vulgar bullies and bravoes ; half persuaded that a 
republic is the contemptible rule of a mob, and secretly long- 5 
ing for a splendid and vigorous despotism, — then remember 
it is not a government mastered by ignorance, it is a govern- 
ment betrayed by intelligence ; it is not the victory of the slums, 
it is the surrender of the schools ; it is not that bad men are 
brave, but that good men are infidels and cowards. 10 

8. But, Gentlemen, when you come to address yourselves to 
these primary public duties, your first surprise and dismay will 
be the discovery that, in a country where education is declared 
to be the hope of its institutions, the higher education is often 
practically held to be almost a disadvantage. You will go from 1 5 
these halls to hear a very common sneer at college-bred men ; 

to encounter a jealousy of education as making men visionary 
and pedantic and impracticable ; to confront a belief that there 
is something enfeebling in the higher education, and that self- 
made men, as they are called, are the sure stay of the state. 20 
But what is really meant by a self-made man ? It is a man of 
native sagacity and strong character, who was taught, it is 
proudly said, only at the plow or the anvil or the bench. He 
w^as schooled by adversity, and was polished by hard attrition 
with men. He is Benjamin Franklin, the printer's boy, or 25 
Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter. They never went to college, 
but nevertheless, like Agamemnon, they were kings of men, 
and the world blesses their memory. 

9. So it does ; but the sophistry here is plain enough, 
although it is not always detected. Great genius and force of 30 
character undoubtedly make their own career. But because 
Walter Scott was dull at school, is a parent to see with joy that 
his son is a dunce? Because Lord Chatham was of a tower- 
ing conceit, must we infer that pompous vanity portends a 



198 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

comprehensive statesmanship that will fill the world with the 
splendor of its triumphs ? Because Sir Robert Walpole gambled 
and swore and boozed at Houghton, are we to suppose that 
gross sensuality and coarse contempt of human nature are the 

5 essential secrets of a power that defended liberty against Tory 
intrigue and priestly politics? Was it because Benjamin 
Franklin was not college-bred that he drew the lightning from 
heaven and tore the scepter from the tyrant? Was it because 
Abraham Lincoln had little schooling that his great heart beat 

10 true to God and man, lifting him to free a race and die for his 
country ? Because men naturally great have done great service 
in the world without advantages, does it follow that lack of 
advantage is the secret of success? Was Pericles a less saga- 
cious leader of the state, during forty years of Athenian glory, 

15 because he was thoroughly accomplished in every grace of 
learning? Or, swiftly passing from the Athenian agora to the 
Boston town meeting, behold Samuel Adams, tribune of New 
England against Old England, of America against Europe, of 
liberty against despotism. Was his power enfeebled, his fervor 

20 chilled, his patriotism relaxed, by his college education? No, 
no ; they were strengthened, kindled, confirmed. Taking his 
Master's degree one hundred and thirty-four years ago, thirty- 
three years before the Declaration of Independence, Samuel 
Adams, then twenty-one years old, declared in a Latin dis- 

25 course — the first flashes of the fire that blazed afterward in 
Faneuil Hall and kindled America — that it is lawful to resist 
the supreme magistrate if the commonwealth cannot otherwise 
be preserved. In the very year that Jefferson was born, the 
college boy, Samuel Adams, on a Commencement day like this, 

30 on an academical platform like this on which we stand, struck 
the keynote of American independence, which still stirs the 
heart of man with its music. 

10. Or, within our own century, look at the great modern 
statesmen who have shaped the politics of the world. They 




CURTIS 199 

were educated men ; were they therefore visionary, pedantic, 
impracticable? Cavour, whose monument is United Italy — 
one from the Alps to Tarentum, from the lagoons of Venice to 
the Gulf of Salerno ; Bismarck, who has raised the German 
empire from a name to a fact ; Gladstone, to-day the incar- 5 
nate heart and conscience of England, — they are the perpetual 
refutation of the sneer that higher education weakens men for 
practical affairs. Trained themselves, such men know the value 
of training. All countries, all ages, all men, are their teachers. 
The broader their education, the wider the horizon of their 10 
thought and observation, the more affluent their resources, the 
more humane their policy. Would Samuel Adams have been 
a truer popular leader had he been less an educated man? 
Would Walpole the less truly have served his country had he 
been, with all his capacities, a man whom England could have 15 
revered and loved? Could Gladstone so sway England with his 
serene eloquence, as the moon the tides, were he a gambling, 
swearing, boozing squire like Walpole? There is no sophistry 
more poisonous to the state, no folly more stupendous and de- 
moralizing, than the notion that the purest character and the 20 
highest education are incompatible with the most commanding 
mastery of men and the most efficient administration of affairs. 
1 1 . Undoubtedly a practical and active interest in politics 
will lead you to party association and cooperation. Great 
public results — the repeal of the corn laws in England, the 25 
abolition of slavery in America — are due to that organization 
of effort and concentration of aim which arouse, instruct, and 
inspire the popular heart and will. This is the spring of party, 
and those who earnestly seek practical results instinctively turn 
to this agency of united action. But in this tendency, useful 30 
in the state as the fire upon the household hearth, lurks, as in 
that fire, the deadliest peril. Here is our republic — it is a 
ship with towering canvas spread, sweeping before the pros- 
perous gale over a foaming and sparkling sea ; it is a lightning 



200 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

train, darting with awful speed along the edge of dizzy abysses 
and across bridges that quiver over unsounded gulfs. Because 
we are Americans, we have no peculiar charm, no magic spell, 
to stay the eternal laws. Our safety lies alone in cool self- 
5 possession, directing the forces of wind and wave and fire. If 
once the madness to which the excitement tends usurps con- 
trol, the catastrophe is inevitable. And so deep is the convic- 
tion that sooner or later this madness must seize every republic, 
that the most plausible suspicion of the permanence of the 

10 American government is founded in the belief that party spirit 
cannot be restrained. It is indeed a master passion, but its 
control is the true conservatism of the republic and of happy 
human progress; and it is men made famihar by education 
with the history of its ghastly catastrophes, men with the proud 

15 courage of independence, who are to temper by lofty action, 
born of that knowledge, the ferocity of party spirit. 

12. The first object of concerted political action is the 
highest welfare of the country. But the conditions of party 
association are such that the means are constantly and easily 

20 substituted for the end. The sophistry is subtle and seductive. 
Holding the ascendency of his party essential to the national 
welfare, the zealous partisan merges patriotism in party. He 
insists that not to sustain the party is to betray the country, 
and against all honest doubt and reasonable hesitation and 

25 reluctance, he vehemently urges that quibbles of conscience 
must be sacrificed to the public good ; that wise and practical 
men will not be squeamish ; that every soldier in the army 
cannot indulge his own whims ; and that if the majority may 
justly prevail in determining the government, it must not be 

30 questioned in the control of a party. 

13. This spirit adds moral coercion to sophistry. It de- 
nounces as a traitor him who protests against party tyranny, 
and it makes unflinching adherence to what is called regular 
party action the condition of the gratification of honorable 



CURTIS 201 

political ambition. Because a man who sympathizes with the 
party aims refuses to vote for a thief, this spirit scorns him as 
a rat and a renegade. Because he holds to principle and law 
against party expediency and dictation, he is proclaimed to 
have betrayed his country, justice, and humanity. Because he 5 
tranquilly insists upon deciding for himself when he must 
dissent from his party, he is reviled as a popinjay and a vision- 
ary fool. Seeking with honest purpose only the welfare of 
his country, the hot air around him hums with the cry of 
" the grand old party," " the traditions of the party," *' loyalty 10 
to the party," "future of the party," "servant of the party," 
and he sees and hears the gorged and portly money changers 
in the temple usurping the very divinity of the God. Young 
hearts ! be not dismayed. If ever any one of you shall be the 
man so denounced, do not forget that your own individual 15 
convictions are the whip of small cords which God has put 
into your hands to expel the blasphemers. 

14. The same party spirit naturally denies the patriotism 
of its opponents. Identifying itself with the country, it regards 
all others as public enemies. This is substantially revolution- 20 
ary politics. It is the condition of France, where, in its own 
words, the revolution is permanent. Instead of regarding the 
other party as legitimate opponents — in the English phrase, 
His Majesty's Opposition — lawfully seeking a different policy 
under the government, it decries that party as a conspiracy 25 
plotting the overthrow of the government itself. History is 
lurid with the wasting fires of this madness. We need not look 
to that of other lands. Our own is full of it. It is painful to 
turn to the opening years of the Union, and see how the great 
men whom we are taught to revere* and to whose fostering 30 
care the beginning of the republic was intrusted, fanned their 
hatred and suspicion of each other. Do not trust the flatter- 
ing voices that whisper of a Golden Age behind us, and be- 
moan our own as a degenerate day. The castles of hope always 



202 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

shine along the horizon. Our fathers saw thens where we are 
standing. We behold ours where our fathers stood. But pen- 
sive regret for the heroic past, like eager anticipation of the 
future, shows only that the vision of a loftier life forever 
5 allures the human soul. We think our fathers to have been 
wiser than we, and their day more enviable. But eighty years 
ago the Federahsts abhorred their opponents as Jacobins, and 
thought Robespierre and Marat no worse than Washington's 
Secretary of State. Their opponents retorted that the Federal- 
10 ists were plotting to establish a monarchy by force of arms. 
The New England pulpit anathematized Tom Jefferson as an 
atheist and a satyr. Jefferson denounced John Jay as a rogue, 
and the chief newspaper of the opposition, on the morning 
that Washington retired from the presidency, thanked God 
15 that the country was now rid of the man who was the source 
of all its misfortunes. There is no mire in which party spirit 
wallows to-day with which our fathers were riot befouled, and 
how little sincere the vituperation was, how shallow a fury, 
appears when Jefferson and Adams had retired from public 
20 life. Then they corresponded placidly and familiarly, each at 
last conscious of the other's fervent patriotism ; and when 
they died, they were lamented in common by those who in 
their names had flown at each other's throats, as the patri- 
archal Castor and Pollux of the pure age of our poHtics, now 
25 fixed as a constellation of hope in our heaven. 

15. The same brutal spirit showed itself at the time of 
Andrew Johnson's impeachment. Impeachment is a proceed- 
ing to be instituted only for great public reasons, which should, 
presumptively, command universal support. To prostitute the 
30 power of impeachment to a mere party purpose would readily 
lead to the reversal of the result of an election. But it was 
made a party measure. The party was to be whipped into its 
support : and when certain senators broke the party yoke 
upon their necks, and voted according to their convictions, as 



CURTIS 203 

honorable men always will, whether the party whips like it 
or not, one of the whippers-in exclaimed of a patriotism the 
struggle of obedience to which cost one senator, at least, his 
life, — "If there is anything worse than the treachery, it is the 
cant which pretends that it is the result of conscientious con- 5 
viction ; the pretense of a conscience is quite unbearable." 
This was the very acridity of bigotry, which in other times 
and countries raised the cruel tribunal of the Inquisition, and 
burned opponents for the glory of God. The party madness 
that dictated these words, and the sympathy that approved 10 
them, was treason not alone to the country but to well-ordered 
human society. Murder may destroy great statesmen, but 
corruption makes great states impossible ; and this was an 
attempt at the most insidious corruption. The man who 
attempts to terrify a senator of the United States to cast a 15 
dishonest vote, by stigmatizing him as a hypocrite and devot- 
ing him to party hatred, is only a more plausible rascal than 
his opponent who gives Pat O'Flanagan a fraudulent natural- 
ization paper or buys his vote with a dollar or a glass of whisky. 
Whatever the offenses of the President may have been, they 20 
were as nothing when compared with the party spirit which 
declared that it was tired of the intolerable cant of honesty. 
So the sneering cavalier was tired of the cant of the Puritan 
conscience ; but the conscience of which plumed Injustice 
and coroneted Privilege were tired has been for three cen- 25 
turies the invincible bodyguard of civil and religious liberty. 

16. Gentlemen, how dire a calamity the same party spirit 
was preparing for the country within a few months, we can 
now perceive with amazement and with hearty thanksgiving 
for a great deliverance. The ordeal of last winter was the 30 
severest strain ever yet applied to republican institutions. It 
was a mortal strain along the very fiber of our system. It was 
not a collision of sections, nor a conflict of principles of civi- 
lization. It was a supreme and triumphant test of American 



204 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

patriotism. Greater than the declaration of independence by 
colonies hopelessly alienated from the Crown and already in 
arms; greater than emancipation, as a military expedient, 
amid the throes of civil war, was the peaceful and reasonable 
5 consent of two vast parties — in a crisis plainly foreseen and 
criminally neglected — a crisis in which each party asserted 
its solution to be indisputable — to devise a lawful settlement 
of the tremendous contest, a settlement which, through furi- 
ous storms of disappointment and rage, has been rehgiously 

lo respected. We are told that our politics are mean — that 
already, in its hundredth year, the decadence of the Ameri- 
can republic appears and the hope of the world is clouded. 
But tell me, scholars, in what high hour of Greece, when, as 
De Witt CHnton declared, the herb-woman could criticise the 

15 phraseology of Demosthenes, and the meanest artisan could 
pronounce judgment on the works of Apelles and Phidias, or 
at what proud epoch of imperial Rome, or millennial moment 
of the fierce Italian republics, was ever so momentous a party 
difference so wisely, so peacefully, so humanely, composed? 

20 Had the sophistry of party prevailed, had each side resolved 
that not to insist upon its own claim at every hazard was what 
the mad party spirit of each side declared it to be, a pusillani- 
mous surrender; had the spirit of Marius mastered one party 
and that of Sylla the other, this waving valley of the Mohawk 

25 would not to-day murmur with the music of industry, and 
these tranquil voices of scholars blending with its happy har- 
vest song; it would have smoked and roared with fraternal 
war, and this shuddering river would have run red through 
desolated meadows and by burning homes. 

30 17. It is because these consequences are familiar to the 
knowledge of educated and thoughtful men that such men 
are constantly to assuage this party fire and to take care that 
party is always subordinated to patriotism. Perfect party dis- 
cipline is the most dangerous weapon of party spirit, for it is 



CURTIS 205 

the abdication of the individual judgment : it is the appHca- 
tion to political parties of the Jesuit principle of implicit 
obedience. 

18. It is for you to help break this withering spell. It is 
for you to assert the independence and the dignity of the 5 
individual citizen, and to prove that party was made for the 
voter, not the voter for party. When you are angrily told that 

if you erect your personal whim against the regular party 
behest, you make representative government impossible by 
refusing to accept its conditions, hold fast by your own con- 10 
science and let the party go. There is not an American mer- 
chant who would send a ship to sea under the command of 
Captain Kidd, however skillful a sailor he might be. Why 
should he vote to send Captain Kidd to the legislature or to 
put him in command of the ship of state because his party 15 
directs? The party which to-day nominates Captain Kidd, 
will to-morrow nominate Judas Iscariot ; and to-morrow, as 
to-day, party spirit will spurn you as a traitor for refusing to 
sell your master. " I tell you," said an ardent and well-mean- 
ing partisan, speaking of a closely contested election in another 20 
state, " I tell you it is a nasty state, and I hope we have done 
nasty work enough to carry it." But if your state has been 
carried by nasty means this year, success will require nastier 
next year, and the nastiest means will always carry it. The 
party may win, but the state will have been lost, for there are 25 
successes which are failures. When a man is sitting upon the 
bough of a tree and diligently sawing it off between himself 
and the trunk, he may succeed, but his success will break his 
neck. 

19. The remedy for the constant excess of party spirit lies, 30 
and lies alone, in the courageous independence of the individ- 
ual citizen. The only way, for instance, to procure the party 
nomination of good men, is for every self-respecting voter to 
refuse to vote for bad men. In the mediaeval theology the 



206 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

devils feared nothing so much as the drop of holy water and 
the sign of the cross, by which they were exorcised. The evil 
spirits of party fear nothing so much as bolting and scratching. 
In hoc signo vinces. If a farmer would reap a good crop, he 
5 scratches the weeds out of his field. If we would have good 
men upon the ticket, we must scratch bad men off. If the 
scratching breaks down the party, let it break ; for the success 
of the party by such means would break down the country. 
The evil spirits must be taught by means that they can under- 

10 stand. " Them fellers " — said the captain of a canal boat of 
his men — '' them fellers never think you mean a thing until 
you kick 'em. They feel that, and understand." 

20. It is especially necessary for us to perceive the vital 
relation of individual courage and character to the common 

15 welfare because ours is a government of public opinion, and 
public opinion is but the aggregate of individual thought. We 
have the awful responsibility as a community of doing what 
we choose ; and it is of the last importance that we choose to 
do what is wise and right. In the early days of the antislavery 

20 agitation a meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, in Boston, 
which a good-natured mob of sailors was hired to suppress. 
They took possession of the floor and danced breakdowns and 
shouted choruses and refused to hear any of the orators upon 
the platform. The most eloquent pleaded with them in vain. 

25 They were urged by the memories of the Cradle of Liberty, 
for the honor of Massachusetts, for their own honor as Boston 
boys, to respect liberty of speech. But they still laughed and 
sang and danced, and were proof against every appeal. At 
last a man suddenly arose from among themselves, and be- 

30 gan to speak. Struck by his tone and quaint appearance, and 
with the thought that he might be one of themselves, the 
mob became suddenly still. "Well, fellow-citizens," he said, 
*'I wouldn't be quiet if I didn't want to." The words were 
greeted with a roar of delight from the mob, which supposed 



CURTIS 207 

it had found its champion, and the applause was unceasing 
for five minutes, during which the strange orator tranquilly 
awaited his chance to continue. The wish to hear more 
hushed the tumult, and when the hall was still he resumed : 
" No, I certainly would n't stop if I had n't a mind to ; but 5 
then, if I were you, I would ]\2i\e. a mind to ! " The oddity of 
the remark and the earnestness of the tone held the crowd 
silent, and the speaker continued, " not because this is Fan- 
euil Hall, nor for the honor of Massachusetts, nor because 
you are Boston boys, but because you are men, and because 10 
honorable and generous men always love fair play." The 
mob was conquered. Free speech and fair play were secured. 
Public opinion can do what it has a mind to in this country. 
If it be debased and demoralized, it is the most odious of 
tyrants. It is Nero and Caligula multiplied by millions. Can 15 
there then be a more stringent public duty for every man — 
and the greater the intelligence the greater the duty — than 
to take care, by all the influence he can command, that the 
country, the majority, public opinion, shall have a mind to do 
only what is just and pure and humane ? 20 

21. Gentlemen, leaving this college to take your part in 
the discharge of the duties of American citizenship, every 
sign encourages and inspires. The year that is now ending, 
the year that opens the second century of our history, has 
furnished the supreme proof that in a country of rigorous 25 
party division the purest patriotism exists. That, and that 
only, is the pledge of a prosperous future. No mere party 
fervor, or party fidelity, or party discipline, could fully restore 
a country torn and distracted by the fierce debate of a century 
and the convulsions of civil war ; nothing less than a patriot- 30 
ism all-embracing as the summer air could heal a wound so 
wide. I know — no man better — how hard it is for earnest 
men to separate their country from their party, or their 
religion from their sect. But nevertheless the welfare of the 



208 THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 

country is dearer than the mere victory of party, as truth is 
more precious than the interest of any sect. You will hear 
this patriotism scorned as an impracticable theory, as the 
dream of a cloister, as the whim of a fool. But such was the 

5 folly of the Spartan Leonidas, staying with his three hundred 
the Persian horde and teaching Greece the self-reliance that 
saved her. Such was the folly of the Swiss Arnold von Winkel- 
ried, gathering into his own breast the host of Austrian spears, 
making his dead body the bridge of victory for his country- 

10 men. Such was the folly of the American Nathan Hale, gladly 
risking the seeming disgrace of his name, and grieving that he 
had but one life to give for his country. Such are the beacon 
lights of a pure patriotism that burn forever in men's memories 
and answer each other through the illuminated ages. And of 

15 the same grandeur, in less heroic and poetic form, was the 
patriotism of Sir Robert Peel in recent history. He was the 
leader of a great party and the prime minister of England. 
The character and necessity of party were as plain to him as 
to any man. But when he saw that the national welfare 

20 demanded the repeal of the corn laws which he had always 
supported, he did not quail. Amply avowing the error of a 
life and the duty of avowing it — foreseeing the probable over- 
throw of his party and the bitter execration that must fall 
upon him, he tranquilly did his duty. With the eyes of Eng- 

25 land fixed upon him in mingled amazement, admiration, and 
indignation, he rose in the House of Commons to perform as 
great a service as any English statesman ever performed for 
his country, and in closing his last speech in favor of the 
repeal, describing the consequences that its mere prospect had 

30 produced, he loftily exclaimed : " Where there was dissatis- 
faction, I see contentment ; where there was turbulence, I see 
there is peace ; where there was disloyalty, I see there is 
loyalty. I see a disposition to confide in you, and not to 
agitate questions that are the foundations of your institutions." 



CURTIS 209 

When all was over, when he had left office, when his party 
was out of power, and the fury of party execration against 
him was spent, his position was greater and nobler than it had 
ever been. Cobden said of him, " Sir Robert Peel has lost 
office, but he has gained a country "; and Lord Bailing said 5 
of him, what may truly be said of Washington : " Above all 
parties, himself a party, he had trained his own mind into a 
disinterested sympathy with the intelligence of his country." 

22. A public spirit so lofty is not confined to other ages 
and lands. You are conscious of its stirrings in your souls. It 10 
calls you to courageous service, and I am here to bid you 
obey the call. Such patriotism may be ours. Let it be your 
parting vow that it shall be yours. Bolingbroke described a 
patriot king in England ; I can imagine a patriot president in 
America. I can see him indeed the choice of a party, and 15 
called to administer the government when sectional jealousy is 
fiercest and party passion most inflamed. I can imagine him 
seeing clearly what justice and humanity, the national law and 
the national welfare, require him to do, and resolved to do it. 
I can imagine him patiently enduring not only the mad cry of 20 
party hate, the taunt of " recreant " and '* traitor," of " rene- 
gade " and "coward," but what is harder to bear, the amaze- 
ment, the doubt, the grief, the denunciation, of those as sin- 
cerely devoted as he to the common welfare. I can imagine 
him pushing firmly on, trusting the heart, the intelhgence, the 25 
conscience of his countrymen ; healing angry wounds, correct- 
ing misunderstandings, planting justice on surer foundations, 
and, whether his party rise or fall, lifting his country heaven- 
ward to a more perfect union, prosperity, and peace. This is 
the spirit of a patriotism that girds the commonwealth with 30 
the resistless splendor of the moral law — the invulnerable 
panoply of states, the celestial secret of a great nation and a 
happy people. 



THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE 
SOUTH 

Henry W. Grady 

a speech delivered at the annual banquet of the boston 
Merchants' Association in December, 1889. 

INTRODUCTION 

Henry Woodfin Grady, journalist and orator, was born at 
Athens, Georgia, April 24, 1850. He graduated from the State 
University at Athens at the age of eighteen, and took a post- 
graduate course at the University of Virginia. For some time he 
acted as Southern correspondent for the New York Herald^ and 
later became editor of the Rome(Georgia) Daily Commercial 2in6. 
of the Atlanta Herald. His journalistic efforts were not finan- 
cially successful until, in 1880, he became editor and part owner 
of the Atlanta Constitution. He remained with this paper until 
his death, December 23, 1889. 

To the argument that the press in modern times has supplanted 
oratory, the career of Henry W. Grady is a refutation. Journalism 
was his profession, while his oratory was an incident ; and yet his 
fame and influence came chiefly through the incident. It is not 
two decades since his last public address, the oration in this 
volume, was delivered, yet even now the story of his oratorical 
triumphs reads like a doubtful tale. On December 22, 1886, he 
accepted an invitation to speak on the " New South " at the 
annual banquet of the New England Society, in New York City. 
The reception of this speech, both by the immediate audience 
and by that larger audience reached through the press, amounted 
to a sensation. The night of the speech Grady was favorably 
known in his own section ; the next morning he was receiving the 

211 



212 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

enthusiastic plaudits of the whole country. Not excepting Mr. 
Bryan's effort at Chicago, — and excelling it in sustained interest 
and influence, — nothing in the history of modern oratory equals 
Grady's rocket-like flight to fame. Through this single speech 
he became a national figure, and his oratory of national renown 
and influence. 

The better to understand Grady's oratory, let us briefly consider 
his equipment, and the cause to which his life was devoted. 

Introduced to a Boston audience as " the incomparable orator 
of the day," Grady remarked, " I am a talker by inheritance : my 
father was an Irishman and my mother was a woman." His Irish 
ancestry may explain his ready wit and delicious humor, his 
facility and fluency in extempore speaking, and, in part, the 
ornateness and emotionalism that characterize his speeches. His 
experience as a reporter in various fields no doubt aided him in 
acquiring a vocabulary, in appreciating the power of words and 
in gaining facility in their use. Further, he must have had the 
oratorical instinct early developed. At the University of Georgia 
he took an active part in the work of the literary and debating 
societies, and his chief ambition was to become " Society Orator." 
At the University of Virginia his main object, says his biographer, 
Joel Chandler Harris, was to perfect himself in oratory. 

Grady's style has been criticised as excessively ornate. This 
criticism is hardly applicable to the speech in this volume, and 
yet a leading Boston lawyer described it as a " cannon ball in full 
flight, fringed with flowers." But taking his speeches as a whole, 
there are more flowers than cannon balls. Grady's natural element 
was in the realm of fancy ; he aimed to move and win his hearers, 
not to drive or force them. In the prohibition campaign in 
Atlanta, in 1887, Grady came out as a strong prohibitionist, while 
his associate on the Constitution^ Captain E. P. Howell, was an 
equally strong anti-prohibitionist. Both were on the hustings in 
advocacy of their respective sides. A reporter on the Atlanta 
Evening Journal contrasted their oratory in the following descrip- 
tion, which is interesting as a record of contemporary impressions: 

" Howell makes you feel as if he were the commander of an 
army, waving his sword and saying, ' Follow me,' and you would 
follow him to the death ; Grady makes you feel like you want to 
be an angel and with the angels stand. Howell will march his 
audience, like an army, through flood and fire and hell ; with 



GRADY 213 

subtle humor Grady will lead his audience by the still waters 
where pleasant pastures lie, and there he will ' take the wings of 
the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea.' In Howell's 
march the drumbeat never ceases ; in Grady's flights you only hear 
the cherubim's wings. Howell's eloquence is like a rushing moun- 
tain stream that tears every rock and crag from its path, gathering 
volume as it goes ; Grady's is like a cumulus cloud that rises 
invisible as mist till it unfolds its white banners in the sky. 
Howell will doubtless deal in statistics ; Grady will have figures, 
but they will not smell of the census. They will take on the 
pleasing shape that induced one of his reporters to plant a crop 
of Irish potatoes on a speculation. To-night Atlanta will be 
treated to a hopeful view of prohibition by the most eloquent 
optimist in the country." 

The great cause to which Grady gave his life was that of the 
South and her future. Journalism was his profession, but the 
" New South " was his passion. Of this subject he never tired, 
and he discussed it " with a brilliancy, a fervor, a versatility, and 
a fluency marvelous enough to have made the reputation of half 
a dozen men." In the preceding oration in this volume Curtis 
makes an eloquent plea for the higher politics, — the politics 
that is above partisanship and self-seeking. To this higher politics 
Grady's contribution was that he lifted the plane of sectional 
debate to more candid and dignified interchanges of opinion. It 
is difficult at this time to realize the prejudice and suspicion that 
obtained between the North and the South when Grady first spoke 
in New York. While the circumstances that made his mediation 
necessary have largely disappeared, these circumstances must be 
borne in mind in order to appreciate both the form and the effect 
of his speech. As Patrick Henry was the war orator for the colo- 
nists, and Wendell Phillips for the antislavery agitators, Grady 
was the orator for the peacemakers. In this work of pacification 
his speeches necessarily became largely moral appeals rather 
than arguments ; hence the prevailing emotional element which 
characterizes his style. 

And of the New South that Grady foretold, what a prophecy 
was he ! Linked to the past by the memory of a father killed 
while fighting for the Confederate cause, he grappled bravely 
with war's terrible results, and turned his face toward the future 
with the eye of a statesman and the heart of a patriot. Idolized 



214 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

by the South, honored and esteemed by the nation, with a charac- 
ter above reproach, a soul on fire with earnestness, and a nature 
peculiarly tender and lovable, it is no exaggeration to say that, 
excepting our martyred presidents, the death of no American has 
caused such universal sorrow. 

The speech that follows was delivered at the annual banquet 
of the Boston Merchants' Association, December 13, 1889. It 
has a pathetic background, for on his trip to Boston Grady con- 
tracted a cold which quickly developed into pneumonia, and he 
died shortly after returning to Atlanta. Regarding this address, 
Mr. Joel Chandler Harris writes : 

" He prepared his Boston speech with great care, not merely 
to perfect its form, but to make it worthy of the great cause he 
had at heart, and in its preparation he departed widely from his 
usual methods of composition. He sent his servants away, locked 
himself in his room, and would not tolerate interruptions from 
any source. His memory was so prodigious that whatever he 
wrote was fixed in his mind, so that when he had once written 
out a speech he needed the manuscript no more. Those who 
were with him say that he did not confine himself to the printed 
text of the Boston speech, but made little excursions suggested by 
his surroundings. Nevertheless, that speech, as it stands, reaches 
the high -water mark of modern oratory. It was his last, as it 
was his best, contribution to the higher politics of the country." 

1. Mr. President : Bidden by your invitation to a discus- 
sion of the race problem — forbidden by occasion to make a 
political speech — I appreciate in trying to reconcile orders 
with propriety the predicament of the little maid, who, bidden 

5 to learn to swim, was yet adjured, " Now go, my darling, 
hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don't go near the 
water." 

2. The stoutest apostle of the church, they say, is the mis- 
sionary, and the missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag, will 

10 never find himself in deeper need of unction and address than 
I, bidden to-night to plant the standard of a Southern Dem- 
ocrat in Boston's banquet hall, and discuss the problem of the 



GRADY 215 

races in the home of PhiHips and of Sumner. But, Mr. Presi- 
dent, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness and sincerity ; 
if earnest understanding of the vast interests involved ; if a 
consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further mis- 
understanding and estrangement, if these may be counted to 5 
steady undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm 

— then. Sir, I find the courage to proceed. 

3. Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet at 
last to press New England's historic soil, and my eyes to the 
knowledge of her beauty and her thrift. Here, within touch 10 
of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill, where Webster thundered 
and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channing preached, 
here in the cradle of American letters, and almost of Amer- 
ican liberty, I hasten to make the obeisance that every Amer- 
ican owes New England when first he stands uncovered in 15 
her mighty presence. Strange apparition ! ' This stern and 
unique figure, carved from the ocean and the wilderness, its 
majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of winters and 

of wars, until at last the gloom was broken, its beauty dis- 
closed in the sunshine, and the heroic workers rested at its 20 
base — while startled kings and emperors gazed and marveled 
that from the rude touch of this handful, cast on a bleak and 
unknown shore, should have come the embodied genius of 
human government and the perfected model of human liberty ! 
God bless the memory of those immortal workers and prosper 25 
the fortunes of their living sons and perpetuate the inspirations 
of their handiwork. 

4. Two years ago. Sir, I spoke some words in New York 
that caught the attention of the North. As I stand here to 
reiterate, as I have done everywhere, every word I then uttered 30 

— to declare that the sentiments I then avowed were universally 
approved in the South — I realize that the confidence begot- 
ten by that speech is largely responsible for my presence 
here to-night. I should dishonor myself if I betrayed that 



2l6 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

confidence by uttering one insincere word or by withholding 
one essential element of the truth. Apropos of this last, let me 
confess, Mr. President — before the praise of New England 
has died on my lips — that I believe the best product of her 
5 present life is the procession of 17,000 Vermont Democrats 
that for twenty- two years, undiminished by death, unrecruited 
by birth or conversion, have marched over their rugged hills, 
cast their Democratic ballots, and gone back home to pray 
for their unregenerate neighbors, and awake to read the rec- 

10 ord of 25,000 Republican majority. May the God of the 
heljDless and the heroic help them — and may their sturdy 
tribe increase ! 

-. 5. Far to the south, Mr. President, separated from this sec- 
tion by a line, once defined in irrepressible difference, once 

15 traced in fratricidal blood, and now, thank God, but a vanish- 
ing shadow, lies the fairest and richest domain of this earth. 
It is the home of a brave and hospitable people. There, is cen- 
tered all that can please or prosper humankind. A perfect 
climate above a fertile soil yields to the husbandman every 

20 product of the temperate zone. There, by night the cotton 
whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the 
sunshine in its bearded sheaf. In the same field the clover 
steals the fragrance of the wind, and the tobacco catches the 
quick aroma of the rains. There, are mountains stored with 

25 exhaustless treasures ; forests vast and primeval ; and rivers 
that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea.' Of the 
three essential items of all industries — cotton, iron, and wood 
— that region has easy control. In cotton, a fixed monopoly ; 
in iron, proven supremacy ; in timber, the reserve supply of 

30 the RepubUc. From this assured and permanent advantage, 
against which artificial conditions cannot much longer prevail, 
has grown an amazing system of industries. Not maintained 
by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afar off from the 
fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting in Divine 



GRADY 217 

assurance, within touch of field and mine and forest ; not 
set amid costly farms from which competition has driven the 
farmer in despair, but amid cheap and sunny- lands, rich with 
agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has set a limit, — 
this system of industries is mounting to a splendor that shall 5 
dazzle and illumine the world. 

6. That, Sir, is the picture and the promise of my home — a 
land better and fairer than I have told you, and yet but fit 
setting, in its material excellence, for the loyal and gentle 
quality of its citizenship. Against that. Sir, we have New 10 
England, recruiting the Republic from its sturdy loins, shaking 
from its overcrowded hives new swarms of workers and touch- 
ing this land all over with its energy and its courage. And yet, 
while in the El Dorado of which I have told you, but fifteen 
per cent of lands are cultivated, its mines scarcely touched 15 
and its population so scant that, were it set equidistant, the 
sound of the human voice could not be heard from Virginia 

to Texas ; while on the threshold of nearly every house in 
New England stands a son, seeking with troubled eyes some 
new land to which to carry his modest patrimony, — the strange 20 
fact remains that in 1880 the South had fewer Northern-born 
citizens than she had in 1870 — fewer in 1870 than in i860. 
Why is this? Why is it. Sir, though the sectional line be now 
but a mist that the breath may dispel, fewer men of the North 
have crossed it over to the South than when it was crimson 25 
with the best blood of the Republic, or even when the slave- 
holder stood guard every inch of its way? 

7. There can be but one answer. It is the very problem 
we are now to consider. The key that opens that problem 
will unlock to the world the fairer half of this Republic, and 3c 
free the halted feet of thousands whose eyes are already 
kindled with its beauty. Better than this, it will open the 
hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, and clasp in last- 
ing comradeship a million hands now withheld in doubt. 



2l8 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

Nothing, Sir, but this problem, and the suspicions it breeds, 
hinders a clear understanding and a perfect union. Nothing 
else stands between us and such love as bound Georgia and 
Massachusetts at Valley Forge and Yorktown, chastened by 
5 the sacrifices at Manassas and Gettysburg, and illumined with 
the coming of better work and a nobler destiny than was ever 
wrought with the sword or sought at the cannon's mouth. 

8. If this does not invite your patient hearing to-night, 
hear one thing more. My people, your brothers in the South 

lo — brothers in blood, in destiny, in all that is best in our past 
and future — are so beset with this problem that their very ex- 
istence depends upon its right solution. Nor are they wholly 
to blame for its presence. The slave ships of the Republic 
sailed 'from your ports, the slaves worked in our fields. You 

15 will not defend the traffic, nor I the institution. But I do 
hereby declare that in its wise and humane administration, 
in lifting the slave to heights of which he had not dreamed 
in his savage home, and giving him a happiness he has not 
yet found in freedom, our fathers left their sons a saving and 

20 excellent heritage. In the storm of war this institution was 
lost. I thank God as heartily as you do that human slavery 
is gone forever from the American soil. 

9. But the freedman remains. With him a problem with- 
out precedent or parallel. Note its appalling conditions. Two 

25 utterly dissimilar races on the same soil, with equal political 
and civil rights, almost equal in numbers, but terribly unequal 
in intelligence and responsibility, each pledged against fusion, 
one for a century in servitude to the other, and freed at last 
by a desolating war, the experiment sought by neither, but 

30 approached by both with doubt, — these are the conditions. 
Under these, adverse at every point, we are required to carry 
these two races in peace and honor to the end. Never, Sir, 
has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never 
before in this Republic has the white race divided on the 



GRADY 219 

rights of an alien race. The red man was cut down as a weed, 
because he hindered the way of the American citizen. The 
yellow man was shut out of this Republic because he is an 
alien and inferior. The red man was owner of the land, the 
yellow man highly civilized and assimilable, but they hin- 5 
dered both sections — and are gone ! 

10. But the black man, affecting but one section, is clothed 
with every privilege of government and pinned to the soil, and 
my people commanded to make good at any hazard and at 
any cost, his full and equal heirship of American privilege and 10 
prosperity. It matters not that wherever the whites and 
blacks have touched, in any era or any clime, there has been 
irreconcilable violence. It matters not that no two races, 
however similar, have lived anywhere at any time on the same 
soil with equal rights in peace. In spite of these things we 15 
are commanded to make good this change of American policy 
which has not perhaps changed American prejudice — to 
make certain here what has elsewhere been impossible between 
whites and blacks — and to reverse, under the very worst con- 
ditions, the universal verdict of racial history. And driven. Sir, 20 
to this superhuman task with an impatience that brooks no 
delay, a rigor that accepts no excuse, and a suspicion that 
discourages frankness and sincerity. We do not shrink from 
this trial. It is so interwoven with our industrial fabric that 
we cannot disentangle it if we would — so bound up in our 25 
honorable obligation to the world that we would not if we 
could. Can we solve it? The God who gave it into our 
hands, He alone can know. But this the weakest and wisest 
of us do know : we cannot solve it with less than your tol- 
erant and patient sympathy — with less than the knowledge 30 
that the blood that runs in your veins is our blood, and that 
when we have done our best, whether the issue be lost or won, 
we shall feel your strong arms about us and hear the beating 
of your approving hearts. 



220 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

11. The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the 
South, the men whose genius made glorious every page of the 
first seventy years of American history, whose courage and for- 
titude you tested in five years of the fiercest war, whose energy 

5 has made bricks without straw and spread splendor amid the 
ashes of their war- wasted homes,-^- these men wear this problem 
in their hearts and their brains, by day and by night. They 
realize, as you cannot, what this problem means — what they 
owe to this kindly and dependent race — the measure of their 

10 debt to the world in whose despite they defended and main- 
tained slavery. And though their feet are hindered in its under- 
growth and their march encumbered with its burdens, they 
have lost neither the patience from which comes clearness nor 
the faith from which comes courage. Nor, Sir, when in passion- 

1 5 ate moments is disclosed to them that vague and awful shadow, 
with its lurid abysses and its crimson stains, into which I pray 
God they may never go, are they struck with more of appre- 
hension than is needed to complete their consecration ! 

12. Such is the temper of my people. But what of the 
2o problem itself ? Mr. President, we need not go one step 

farther unless you concede right here the people I speak for 
are as honest, as sensible, and as just asyour people, seeking 
as earnestly as you would in their place, rightly to solve the 
problem that touches them at every vital point. If you insist 

25 that they are rufhans, blindly striving with bludgeon and shot- 
gun to plunder and oppress a race, then I shall sacrifice my 
self-respect and tax your patience in vain. But admit that 
they are men of common sense and common honesty, wisely 
modifying an environment they cannot wholly disregard, guid- 

30 ing and controlling as best they can the vicious and irrespon- 
sible of either race, compensating error with frankness and 
retrieving in patience what they lose in passion, and conscious 
all the time that wrong means ruin, — admit this, and we may 
reach an understanding to-night. 



GRADY 221 

13. The President of the United States in his late message 
to Congress, discussing the plea that the South should be left 
to solve this problem, asks: "Are they at work upon it? 
What solution do they offer? When will the black man cast 

a free ballot? When will he have the civil rights that are his? " 5 
I shall not here protest against the partisanry that, for the 
first time in our history in time of peace, has stamped with 
the great seal of our government a stigma upon the people of 
a great and loyal section, though I gratefully remember that 
the great dead soldier, who held the helm of state for the eight 10 
stormy years of reconstruction, never found need for such a 
step; and though there is no personal sacrifice I would not 
make to remove this cruel and unjust imputation on my people 
from the archives of my country ! 

14. But, Sir, backed by a record on every page of which is 15 
progress, I venture to make earnest and respectful answer to 
the questions that are asked. I bespeak your patience, while 
with vigorous plainness of speech, seeking your judgment 
rather than your applause, I proceed step by step. We give 

to the world this year a crop of 7,500,000 bales of cotton, 20 
worth $450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses, 
and fruit. This enormous crop could not have come from the 
hands of sullen and discontented labor. It comes from peace- 
ful fields, in which laughter and gossip rise above the hum of 
industry, and contentment runs with the singing plow, 25 

15. It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of its 
just hire. I present the tax books of Georgia, which show that 
the negro, 25 years ago a slave, has in Georgia alone $10,000,- 
000 of assessed property, worth twice that much. Does not 
that record honor him and vindicate his neighbors? What 30 
people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well ? For every Afro- 
American agitator, stirring the strife in which alone he pros- 
pers, I can show you a thousand negroes, happy in their cabin 
homes, tilling their own land by day, and at night taking from 



222 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

the lips of their children the helpful message their state sends 
them from the schoolhouse door. And the schoolhouse itself 
bears testimony. In Georgia we added last year ^250,000 to 
the school fund, making a total of more than $1,000,000 — 
5 and this in the face of prejudice not yet conquered and of the 
fact that the whites are assessed for ^368,000,000, the blacks 
for ^10,000,000, and yet 49 per cent of the beneficiaries are 
black children — and in the doubt of many wise men if edu- 
cation helps, or can help, our problem. Charleston, with her 

10 taxable values cut half in two since i860, pays more in pro- 
portion for public schools than Boston. Although it is easier 
to give much out of much than little out of little, the South 
with one seventh of the taxable property of the country, with 
relatively larger debt, having received only one twelfth as 

15 much public land, and having back of its tax books none of 
the half billion of bonds that enrich the North, and though it 
pays annually ^26,000,000 to your section as pensions, yet 
gives nearly one sixth of the public school fund. The South 
since 1865 has spent ^122,000,000 in education, and this year 

20 is pledged to ^37,000,000 for state and city schools, although 
the blacks, paying one thirtieth of the taxes, get nearly one 
half of the fund. 

16. Go into our fields and see whites and blacks working 
side by side, on our buildings in the same squad, in our shops 

25 at the same forge. Often the blacks crowd the whites from 
work, or lower wages because of greater need or simpler habits, 
and yet are permitted because we want to bar them from no 
avenue in which their feet are fitted to tread. They could not 
there be elected orators of the white universities, as they have 

30 been here, but they do enter there a hundred useful trades 
that are closed against them here. We hold it better and 
wiser to tend the weeds in the garden than to water the exotic 
in the window. In the South, there are negro lawyers, teach- 
ers, editors, dentists, doctors, preachers, multiplying with the 



GRADY 223 

increasing ability of their race to support them. In villages 
and towns they have their military companies equipped from 
the armories of the state, their churches and societies built 
and supported largely by their neighbors. What is the testi- 
mony of the courts? In penal legislation we have steadily 5 
reduced felonies to misdemeanors, and have led the world in 
mitigating punishment for crime, that we might save, as far 
as possible, this dependent race from its own weakness. In 
our penitentiary record 60 per cent of the prosecutors are 
negroes, and in every court the negro criminal strikes the 10 
colored juror, that white men may judge his case. In the 
North one negro in every 466 is in jail ; in the South only 
one in 1865. In the North the percentage of negro prisoners 
is six times as great as native whites ; in the South only four 
times as great. If prejudice wrongs him in Southern courts, 15 
the record shows it to be deeper in Northern courts. 

/ 17. I assert here, and a bar as intelHgent and upright as 
the bar of Massachusetts will solemnly indorse my assertion, 
that in the Southern courts, from highest to lowest, pleading 
for life, liberty, or property, the negro has distinct advantage 20 
because he is a negro, apt to be overreached, oppressed ; 
and that this advantage reaches from the juror in making his 
verdict to the judge in measuring his sentence. /Now, Mr. 
President, can it be seriously maintained that we are terroriz- 
ing the people from whose willing hands come every year 25 
$1,000,000,000 of farm crops? or have robbed a people, 
who twenty-five years from unrewarded slavery have amassed 
in one state $20,000,000 of property? or that we intend to 
oppress the people we are arming every day? or deceive 
them when we are educating them to the utmost limit of our 30 
ability? or outlaw them when we work side by side with 
them? or reenslave them under legal forms when for their 
benefit we have even imprudently narrowed the limit of felo- 
nies and mitigated the severity of law? My fellow countrymen, 



224 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

as you yourself may sometimes have to appeal to the bar of 
human judgment for justice and for right, give to my people 
to-night the fair and unanswerable conclusion of these incon- 
testable facts. 
5 1 8. But it is claimed that under this fair seeming there is 
disorder and violence. This I admit. And there will be until 
there is one ideal community on earth after which we may 
pattern. But how widely it is misjudged ! It is hard to meas- 
ure with exactness whatever touches the negro. His helpless- 

lo ness, his isolation, his century of servitude, these dispose us to 
emphasize and magnify his wrongs. This disposition, inflamed 
by prejudice and partisanry, has led to injustice and delu- 
sion. Lawless men may ravage a county in Iowa and it is 
accepted as an incident — in the South a drunken row is de- 

15 clared to be the fixed habit of the community. Regulators 
may whip vagabonds in Indiana by platoons, and it scarcely 
arrests attention — a chance collision in the South among 
relatively the same classes is gravely accepted as evidence 
that one race is destroying the other. We might as well claim 

20 that the Union was ungrateful to the colored soldiers who fol- 
lowed its flag, because a Grand Army post in Connecticut 
closed its doors to a negro veteran, as for you to give racial 
significance to every incideni ';i the South or to accept excep- 
tional grounds as the rule of our society. I am not one of 

25 those who becloud American honor with ^'ae parade of the 
outrages of either section, and belie American character by 
declaring them to be significant and representative. I prefer 
to maintain that they are neither, and stand for nothing but 
the passion and the sin of our poor fallen humanity. If soci- 

30 ety, like a machine, were no stronger than its weakest part, 
I should despair of both sections. But, knowing that soci- 
ety, sentient and responsible in every fiber, can mend and 
repair until the whole has the strength of the best, I despair 
of neither. 



GRADY 225 

19. These gentlemen who come with me here, knit into 
Georgia's busy life as they are, never saw, I dare assert, an 
outrage committed on a negro! And if they did, not one of 
you would be swifter to prevent or punish. It is through 
them, and the men who think with them — making nine 5 
tenths of every Southern community — that these two races 
have been carried thus far with less of violence than would 
have been possible anywhere else on earth. And in their fair- 
ness and courage and steadfastness, more than in all the laws 
that can be passed or all the bayonets that can be mustered, 10 
is the hope of our future. 

20. When will the black cast a free ballot? When igno- 
rance anywhere is not dominated by the will of the intelligent ; 
when the laborer anywhere casts a vote unhindered by his 
boss; when the vote of the poor anywhere is not influenced 15 
by the power of the rich ; when the strong and the steadfast 
do not everywhere control the suffrage of the weak and shift- 
less, — then and not till then will the ballot of the negro be 
free. The white people of the Solith are banded, Mr. Presi- 
dent, not in prejudice against the blacks, not in sectional 20 
estrangement, not in the hope of political dominion, but in a 
deep and abiding necessity. Here is this vast ignorant and 
purchasable vote — clannish, credulous, impulsive and passion- 
ate — tempting every art of the demagogue, but insensible to 
the appeal of the statesman. Wrongly started, in that it was 25 
led into alienation from its neighbor and taught to rely on the 
protection of an outside force, it cannot be merged and lost 

in the two great parties through logical currents, for it lacks 
political conviction and even that information on which con- 
viction must be based. It must remain a faction — strong 30 
enough in every community to control on the slightest division 
of the whites. Under that division it becomes the prey of the 
cunning and unscrupulous of both parties. Its credulity is 
imposed on, its patience inflamed, its cupidity tempted, its 



226 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

impulses misdirected, and even its superstition made to play- 
its part in a campaign in which every interest of society is 
jeopardized and every approach to the ballot box debauched. 
It is against such campaigns as this, the folly and the bitter- 
5 ness and the danger of which every Southern community has 
drunk deeply, that the white people of the South are banded 
together. Just as you in Massachusetts would be banded if 
300,000 black men, not one in a hundred able to read his bal- 
lot, banded in a race instinct, holding against you the memory 

TO of a century of slavery, taught by your late conquerors to dis- 
trust and oppose you, had already travestied legislation from 
your statehouse, and in every species of folly or villainy had 
wasted your substance and exhausted your credit. 

21. But admitting the right of the whites to unite against 

15 this tremendous menace, we are challenged with the small- 
ness of our vote. This has long been flippantly charged to be 
evidence, and has now been solemnly and officially declared 
to be proof of political turpitude and baseness on our part. 
Let us see. Virginia, a state now under fierce assault for 

20 this alleged crime, in 1888 cast 75 per cent of her vote. 
Massachusetts, the state in which I speak, 60 per cent of her 
vote. Was it suppression in Virginia and natural causes in 
Massachusetts? Last month Virginia cast 69 per cent of her 
vote, and Massachusetts, fighting in every district, cast only 

25 49 per cent of hers. If Virginia is condemned because 31 per 
cent of her vote was silent, how shall this state escape in which 
51 per cent was dumb? Let us enlarge this comparison. The 
sixteen Southern states in 1888 cast 67 per cent of their total 
vote, the six New England states but 6t, per cent of theirs. 

30 By what fair rule shall the stigma be put upon one section, 
while the other escapes? A congressional election in New 
York last week, with the polling place within touch of every 
voter, brought out only 6,000 votes of 28,000 — and the lack 
of opposition is assigned as the natural cause. In a district in 



GRADY 227 

my state, in which an opposition speech has not been heard 
in ten years, and the polling places are miles apart — under 
the unfair reasoning of which my section has been a constant 
victim — the small vote is charged to be proof of forcible 
suppression. In Virginia an average majority of 10,000, under 5 
hopeless division of the minority, was raised to 40,000 ; in 
Iowa, in the same election, a majority of 32,000 was wiped 
out, and an opposition majority of 8000 was established. The 
change of 40,000 votes in Iowa is accepted as poHtical revolu- 
tion ; in Virginia an increase of 30,000 on a safe majority is 10 
declared to be proof of political fraud. I charge these facts 
and figures home. Sir, to the heart and conscience of the 
American people, who will not assuredly see one section con- 
demned for what another section is excused ! If I can drive 
them through the prejudice of the partisan, and have them 15 
read and pondered at the fireside of the citizen, I will rest on 
the judgment there formed and the verdict there rendered ! 

22. It is deplorable, Sir, that in both sections a larger per- 
centage of the vote is not regularly cast, but more inexplicable 
that this should be so in New England than in the South. 20 
What invites the negro to the ballot box? He knows that, of 
all men, it has promised him most and yielded him least. His 
first appeal to suffrage was the promise of " forty acres and a 
mule." His second, the threat that Democratic success meant 
his reenslavement. Both have proved false in his experience. 25 
He looked for a home, and he got the freedman's bank. He 
fought under the promise of the loaf, and in victory was 
denied the crumbs. Discouraged and deceived, he has real- 
ized at last that his best friends are his neighbors, with whom 
his lot is cast, and whose prosperity is bound up in his, and 30 
that he has gained nothing in politics to compensate the loss of 
their confidence and sympathy that is at last his best and his 
enduring hope. And so, without leaders or organization — and 
lacking the resolute heroism of my party friends in Vermont 



228 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

that makes their hopeless march over the hills a high and inspir- 
ing pilgrimage — he shrewdly measures the occasional agitator, 
balances his little account with politics, touches up his mule 
and jogs down the furrow, letting the mad world jog as it will ! 
5 23. The negro vote can never control in the South, and it 
would be well if partisans in the North would understand this. 
I have seen the white people of a state set about by black 
hosts until their fate seemed sealed. But, Sir, some brave man, 
banding them together, would rise, as Elisha rose in belea- 

10 guered Samaria, and touching their eyes with faith, bid them 
look abroad to see the very air " filled with the chariots of 
Israel and the horsemen thereof." If there is any human force 
that cannot be withstood, it is the power of the banded intel- 
ligence and responsibility of a free community. Against it, 

15 numbers and corruption cannot prevail. It cannot be for- 
bidden in the law or divorced in force. It is the inaUenable 
right of every free community and the -just and righteous 
safeguard against an ignorant or corrupt suffrage. It is on 
this. Sir, that we rely in the South. Not the cowardly menace 

20 of mask or shotgun ; but the peaceful majesty of intelhgence 
and responsibility, massed and unified for the protection of its 
homes and the preservation of its liberty. That, Sir, is our 
reliance and our hope, and against it all the powers of the 
earth shall not prevail. You may pass force bills, but they will 

25 not avail. You may surrender your own liberties to Federal 
election law ; you may submit, in fear of a necessity that does 
not exist, that the very form of this government may be 
changed; this old state that holds in its charter the boast 
that " it is a free and independent commonwealth " — it may 

30 deliver its election machinery into the hands of the govern- 
ment it helped to create ; but never. Sir, will a single state of 
this Union, North or South, be delivered again to the control 
of an ignorant and inferior race. We wrested our state gov- 
ernment from negro supremacy when the Federal drumbeat 



GRADY 229 

rolled closer to the ballot box and Federal bayonets hedged it 
deeper about than will e\er again be permitted in this free 
government. But, Sir, though the cannon of this Republic 
thundered in every voting district of the South, we still should 
find in the mercy of God the means and the courage to pre- 5 
vent its reestabhshment ! 

24. I regret. Sir, that my section, hindered with this prob- 
lem, stands in seeming estrangement to the North. If, Sir, 
any man will point out to me a path down which the white 
people of the South divided may walk in peace and honor, 10 
I will take that path though I take it alone — for at the end, 
and nowhere else, I fear, is to be found the full prosperity of 
my section and the full restoration of this Union. But, Sir, if 
the negro had not been enfranchised, the South would have 
been divided and the Republic united. What solution, then, 15 
can we offer for this problem? Time alone can disclose it to 
us. We simply report progress and ask your patience. If the 
problem be solved at all — and I firmly believe it will, though 
nowhere else has it been — it will be solved by the people 
most deeply bound in interest, most deeply pledged in honor 20 
to its solution. I had rather see my people render back this 
question rightly solved than to see them gather all the spoils 
over which faction has contended since Catiline conspired and 
Caesar fought. 

2 5./ Meantime we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him 25 
justice in the fullness the strong should give to the weak, and 
leading him in the steadfast ways of citizenship that he may 
no longer be the prey of the unscrupulous and the sport of 
the thoughtless. We open to him every pursuit in which he 
can prosper, and seek to broaden his training and capacity. 30 
We seek to hold his confidence and friendship, and to pin 
him to the soil with ownership, that he may catch in the fire 
of his own hearthstone that sense of responsibility the shiftless 
can never know. And we gather him into that alliance of 



230 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

intelligence and responsibility that, though it now runs close 
to racial lines, welcomes the responsible and intelligent of any 
race. /By this course, confirmed in our judgment and justified 
in the progress already made, we hope to progress slowly but 

5 surely to the end. 

26. The love we feel for that race you cannot measure nor 
comprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black 
mammy from her home up there looks down to bless, and 
through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her 

10 croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms 
and led me smiling into sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak, 
and I catch a vision "of an old Southern home, with its lofty 
pillars, and its white pigeons fluttering down through the 
golden air. I see women with strained and anxious faces and 

15 children alert yet helpless. I see night come down with its 
dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room I 
feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands — - now worn 
and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal 
woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal 

20 man — as they lay a mother's blessing there while at her 
knees, the truest altar I yet have found, I thank God that she 
is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the 
silent cabin or guard at her chamber door, put a black man's 
loyalty between her and danger. 

25 27. I catch another vision. The crisis of battle — a soldier 
struck, staggering, fallen. I see a slave, scuffling through the 
smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless 
of the hurtling death, bending his trusty face to catch the 
words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime 

30 with agony that he would lay down his life in his master's 
stead. I see him by the weary bedside, ministering with un- 
complaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that 
God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and 
in honor to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. 



GRADY 231 

I see him by the open grave, miite, motionless, uncovered, 
suffering for the death of him who in Hfe fought against his 
freedom. I see him when the mound is heaped and the great 
drama of that life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes 
and uncertain step start out into new and strange fields, falter- 5 
ing, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is 
lost in the light of this better and brighter day. And from the 
grave comes a voice saying : " Follow him ! Put your arms 
about him in his need, even as he put his about me. Be his 
friend as he was mine." And out into this new world — strange 10 
to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering both — I follow ! And 
may God forget my people when they forget him. 

28. Whatever the future may hold for them, — whether they 
plod along in the servitude from which they have never been 
lifted since the Cyrenian was laid hold upon by the Roman 15 
soldiers and made to bear the cross of the fainting Christ; 
whether they find homes again in Africa, and thus hasten the 
prophecy of the psalmist who said, " And suddenly Ethiopia 
shall hold out her hands unto God " ; whether, forever dis- 
located and separated, they remain a weak people beset by 20 
stronger, and exist as the Turk, who lives in the jealousy rather 
than in the conscience of Europe ; or whether in this miracu- 
lous Republic they break through the caste of twenty centuries 
and, belying universal history, reach the full stature of citi- 
zenship, and in peace maintain it, — we shall give them utter- 25 
most justice and abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into 
whatever seeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing 
shall disturb the love we bear this Republic, or mitigate our 
consecration to its service. 

29. I stand here, Mr. President, to profess no new loyalty. 30 
When General Lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes 
and whose arm was clothed with our strength, renewed his 
allegiance to the government at Appomattox, he spoke from a 
heart too great to be false, and he spoke for every honest man 



232 THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH 

^ from Maryland to Texas. From that day to this, Hamilcar has 
nowhere in the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred and 
vengeance, but everywhere to loyalty and to love. Witness 
the soldier standing at the base of a Confederate monument 
5 above the graves of his comrades, his empty sleeve tossing in 
the April wind, adjuring the young men about him to serve as 
honest and loyal citizens the government against which their 
fathers fought. This message, delivered from that sacred pres- 
ence, has gone home to the hearts of my fellows ! And, sir, I 

lo declare here, if physical courage be always equal to human 
aspiration, that they would die, Sir, if need be, to restore this 
Republic their fathers fought to dissolve ! 
- 30. Such, Mr. President, is this problem as we see it ; such 
is the temper in which we approach it; such the progress 

15 made. 'What do we ask of you? First, patience; out of this 
alone can come perfect work. Second, confidence ; in this 
alone can you judge fairly. Third, sympathy ; in this you can 
help us best. Fourth, give us your sons as hostages. When 
you plant your capital in millions, send your sons that they 

20 may help know how true are our hearts and may help swell 
the Anglo-Saxon current until it can carry without danger this 
black infusion. Fifth, loyalty to the Repubhc — for there is 
sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement. This hour little 
needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the 

25 other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give, us the 
broad and perfect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike 
with Massachusetts — that knows no South, no North, no East, 
no West ; but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot 
of our soil, every state of our Union.;^ 

30 31. A mighty duty. Sir, and a mighty inspiration impels 
every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration 
whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, Sir, are Americans, 
and we fight for human liberty. The uplifting force of the 
American idea is under every throne on earth. ( France, Brazil 



GRADY 233 

— these are our victories. To redeem the earth from kingcraft 
and oppression — this is our mission. And we shall not fail. 
God has sown in our soil the seed of his millennial harvest, 
and he will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until his full 
and perfect day has come. Our history, Sir, has been a con- 5 
stant and expanding miracle from Plymouth Rock and James- 
town all the way — aye, even from the hour when, from the 
voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of 
the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of 
that stupendous day, when the old world will come to marvel 10 
and to learn, amid our gathered treasures, let us resolve to 
crown the miracles of oar past with the spectacle of a Republic 
compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love, loving from 
the lakes to the Gulf, the wounds of war healed in every heart 
as on every hill, serene and resplendent at the summit of 15 
human achievement and earthly glory, blazing out the path, 
and making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth 
must come in God's appointed time ! 



THE PURITAN AND THE 
CAVALIERi 

Henry Watterson 

A RESPONSE TO THE TOAST, " ThE PuRITAN AND THE CaV ALTER," AT 
THE DINNER OF THE NeW ENGLAND SOCIETY, NEW YoRK CiTY, 

Saturday evening, December 22, 1897. 

INTRODUCTION 

Henry Watterson, journalist and orator, was born in Washing- 
ton, District of Columbia, February 16, 1840, He was educated 
by private tutors. In 1861 he went to Nashville, Tennessee, and 
edited the Republicati Banner. He served on staff duty in the 
Confederate army from 1861 to 1863, '^^'^ later was Chief of Scouts 
in General Johnston's army. After the war he again edited the 
Ban7ier. In 1867 he went to Louisville, Kentucky, and founded 
the Cotu'ier-JoMrnal^ which he has made one of the foremost 
of American newspapers. As one of the leading Democrats of 
the country, Mr. Watterson successfully opposed the reactionary 
movement of the Southern extremists against the reconstructive 
amendments to the Constitution, supported Horace Greeley for 
the presidency, and was chief among the supporters of Samuel 
J. Tilden. He has represented Kentucky in succeeding national 
conventions and exercised a decisive influence in shaping the 
party policy. For years he has been an energetic and consist- 
ent free trader. At the Democratic National Convention of 1892 
he declined the chairmanship of the Committee on Resolutions, 
which subsequently made a report unsatisfactory to the tariff 
reformers, and he led a fight in the convention, resulting in the 

1 From The Compromises of Life. Copyright, 1903, by Fox, Duf- 
field & Co. 

235 



236 THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER 

adoption, by a two-thirds vote, of a minority report made by a 
single member of the committee. He has steadily refused office, 
but in 1876-1877 accepted a seat in Congress, declining a reelec- 
tion. He also declined, in 1896, an offer of the nomination for 
president on the National (gold) Democratic ticket. 

Mr. Watterson has published Oddities of Southern Life and 
Character (1892) ; History of the Spa7iish- American IVar (iSgS) ; 
and Compromises of Life (1903). The latter book, from which 
the speech in this volume is taken, is a compilation of his lectures 
and speeches. 

Through all of Mr. Watterson's writing and speaking one domi- 
nant theme will be found, — the national destiny and the homoge- 
neity of the people. To Northern politicians he has set a good 
example in charity and tolerance. Like Grady, in both his edi- 
torial and platform utterances he has effectively represented the 
policy of conciliation between the North and South. The homo- 
geneity of the American people, based on the text, "Blessed be 
tolerance," is humorously shown in the following speech. Upon 
the occasion of its delivery. Honorable Elihu Root, president of 
the New England Society, introduced Mr. Watterson in the fol- 
lowing words : 

" Gentlemen, we are forced to recognize the truth of the ob- 
servation that all the people of New England are not Puritans; 
we must admit an occasional exception. It is equally true, I am 
told, that all the people of the South are not Cavaliers ; but there is 
one Cavalier without fear and without reproach, the splendid cour- 
age of whose convictions shows how close together the highest 
examples of different types can be among godlike men, — a Cava- 
lier of the South, of Southern blood and Southern life, who carries 
in thought and in deed all the serious purpose and disinterested 
action that characterized the Pilgrim fathers whom we commem- 
orate. He comes from an impressionist state where the grass is 
blue, where the men are either all white or all black, and where, 
we are told, quite often the settlements are painted red. He is 
a soldier, a statesman, a scholar, and above all, a lover ; and 
among all the world which loves a lover, the descendants of 
those who, generation after generation, with tears and laughter, 
have sympathized with John Alden and Priscilla, cannot fail to 
open their hearts in sympathy to Henry Watterson and his star- 
eyed goddess." 



WATTERSON 237 

1 . Eleven years ago to-night, there stood where 1 am stand- 
ing now a young Georgian, who, not without reason, recog- 
nized the " significance " of his presence here, — " the first 
Southerner to speak at this board " (a circumstance, let me 
add, not very creditable to any of us) — and who, in words 5 
whose eloquence I ' cannot hope to recall, appealed from the 
New South to New England for a united country. He was 
my disciple, my protege', my friend. He came to me from the 
Southern schools, where he had perused the arts of oratory 
and letters, to get a few lessons in journahsm, as he said ; 10 
needing so few, indeed, that, but a httle later, I sent him to 
one of the foremost journalists of this foVemost city, bearing a 
letter of introduction, which described him as " the greatest 
boy ever born in Dixie, or anywhere else." He is gone now. 
But, short as his life was, its heaven-born mission was ful- 15 
filled ; the dream of its childhood was realized ; for he had 
been appointed by God to carry a message of peace on earth, 
good will to men, and, this done, he vanished from the sight 

of mortal eyes, even as the dove from the ark. 

2 . I mean to take up the word where Grady left it off ; but 20 
I shall continue the sentence with a somewhat larger confi- 
dence, and perhaps with a somewhat fuller meaning ; be- 
cause, notwithstanding the Puritan trappings, traditions, and 
associations which surround me — visible illustrations of the 
self-denying fortitude of the Puritan character and the somber 25 
simplicity of the Puritan taste and habit — I never felt less 
out of place in all my life. 

3. To tell you the truth, I am afraid that I have gained 
access here on false pretenses ; for I am no Cavalier at all ; 
just plain Scotch-Irish ; one of those Scotch-Irish Southerners 30 
who ate no fire in the green leaf and has eaten no dirt in the 
brown, and who, accepting for the moment the terms Puritan 
and Cavalier in the sense an effete sectionalism once sought 

to ascribe to them, — descriptive labels at once classifying and 



238 THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER 

separating North and South, verbal redoubts along that myth- 
ical line called Mason and Dixon, over which there were sup- 
posed by the extremists of other days to be no bridges, — I 
am much disposed to say, " A plague o' both your houses ! " 
5 4. Each was good enough and bad enough, in its way, while 
they lasted ; each in its turn filled the Englisli-speaking world 
with mourning; and each, if either could have resisted the 
infection of the soil and climate they found here, would be 
to-day striving at the sword's point to square life by the iron 

10 rule of theocracy, or to round it by the dizzy whirl of a petti- 
coat ! It is very pretty to read about the May pole in Vir- 
ginia, and very edifying and inspiring to celebrate the deeds of 
the Pilgrim fathers. But there is not Cavalier blood enough 
left in the Old Dominion to produce a single crop of first 

15 families, while, out in Nebraska and Iowa, they claim that 
they have so stripped New England of her Puritan stock as to 
spare her hardly enough for farm hands. This I do know, 
from personal experience, that it is impossible for the stranger- 
guest, sitting beneath a bower of roses in the Palmetto Club 

20 at Charleston, or by a mimic log-heap in the Algonquin Club 
at Boston, to tell the assembled company apart, particularly 
after ten o'clock in the evening ! Why, in that great, final 
struggle between the Puritans and the Cavaliers — which we 
still hear sometimes casually mentioned, although it ended 

25 nearly thirty years ago — there had been such a mixing up of 
Puritan babies and Cavalier babies during the two or three 
generations preceding it that the surviving grandmothers of 
the combatants could not, except for their uniforms, have 
picked out their own on any field of battle ! 

30 5. Turning to the Cyclopcedia of American Biography, I 
find that Webster had all the vices that are supposed to have 
signalized the Cavalier, and Calhoun all the virtues that are 
claimed for the Puritan. During twenty years three statesmen 
of Puritan origin were the chosen party leaders of Cavalier 



WATTERSON 239 

Mississippi : Robert J. Walker, born and reared in Pennsyl- 
vania ; John A. Quitman, born and reared in New York, and 
Sargent S. Prentiss, born and reared in the good old State of 
Maine. That sturdy Puritan, John Slidell, never saw Louisiana 
until he was old enough to vote and to fight : native here, — 5 
an alumnus of Columbia College, — but sprung from New 
England ancestors. Albert Sidney Johnston, the most resplen- 
dent of modern Cavaliers, — from tip to toe a type of the 
species, the very rose and expectancy of the young Con- 
federacy, — did not have a drop of Southern blood in his veins ; lo 
Yankee on both sides of the house, though born in Kentucky 
a little while after his father and mother arrived there from 
Connecticut. The ambassador who serves our government 
near the French Republic was a gallant Confederate soldier 
and is a representative Southern statesman; but he owns the 15 
estate in Massachusetts where his father was born, and where 
his father's fathers lived through many generations. 

6. And the Cavaliers, who missed their stirrups, somehow, 
and got into Yankee saddles? The woods were full of them. 

If Custer was not a Cavalier, Rupert was a Puritan. And 20 
Sherwood and Wadsworth and Kearny, and McPherson, and 
their dashing companions and followers ! The one typical 
Puritan soldier of the war — mark you ! — was a Southern, and 
not a Northern, soldier : Stonewall Jackson, of the Virginia 
line. And, if we should care to pursue the subject further 25 
back, what about Ethan Allen and John Stark and Mad 
Anthony Wayne, Cavaliers each and every one ! Indeed, from 
Israel Putnam to Buffalo Bill, it seems to me the Puritans have 
had rather the best of it in turning out Cavaliers. So the least 
said about the Puritan and the Cavalier — except as blessed 30 
memories or horrid examples — the better for historic accuracy. 

7. If you wish to get at the bottom facts, I don't mind telling 
you, in confidence, that it was we Scotch-Irish who vanquished 
both of you — some of us in peace, others of us in war ; supplying 



240 THE PURITAN AND. THE CAVALIER 

the missing link of adaptability, the needed ingredient of 
common sense, the conservative principle of creed and action, 
to which this generation of Americans owes its intellectual and 
moral emancipation from frivolity and pharisaism, its rescue from 

5 the Scarlet Woman and the mailed hand, and its crystalliza- 
tion into a national character and polity, ruling by force of 
brains and not by force of arms. 

8. Gentlemen — Sir — I, too, have been to Boston. Strange 
as the admission may seem, it is true; and I live to tell the 

10 tale. I have been to Boston ; and, when I declare that I found 
there many things that suggested the Cavalier and did not sug- 
gest the Puritan, I shall not say I was sorry. But, among other 
things, I found there a civilization perfect in its union of the 
art of living with the grace of life; an Americanism ideal in its 

15 simple strength. Grady told us, and told us truly, of that typ- 
ical American, who, in Dr. Talmage's mind's eye, was coming, 
but who, in Abraham Lincoln's actuality, had already come. In 
some recent studies into the career of that great man, I have 
encountered many startling confirmations of this judgment ; 

20 and from that rugged trunk, drawing its sustenance from gnarled 
roots, interlocked with Cavalier sprays and Puritan branches 
deep beneath the soil, shall spring, is springing, a shapely tree — 
symmetric in all its parts — under whose sheltering boughs this 
nation shall have the new birth of freedom Lincoln promised it, 

25 and mankind the refuge which was sought by the forefathers 
when they fled from oppression. Thank God, the ax, the gib- 
bet, and the stake have had their day. They have gone, let 
us hope, to keep company with the lost arts. It has been 
demonstrated that great wrongs may be redressed and great 

30 reforms be achieved without the shedding of one drop of human 
blood ; that vengeance does not purify, but brutalizes ; and 
that tolerance, which in private transactions is reckoned a 
virtue, becomes in public affairs a dogma of the most far-see- 
ing statesmanship. Else how could this noble city have been 

35 redeemed from bondage? It was held like a castle of the 



WATTERSON 241 

Middle Ages by robber barons who levied tribute right and 
left. Yet have the mounds and dikes of corruption been 
carried — from buttress to bell tower the walls of crime have 
fallen — without a shot out of a gun, and still no fires of Smith- 
field to light the pathway of the victor, no bloody assizes to 5 
vindicate the justice of the cause ; nor need of any. 

9. So I appeal from the men in silken hose who danced to 
music made by slaves and called it freedom, from the men in 
bell-crowned hats who led Hester Prynne to her shame and 
and called it religion, to that Americanism which reaches forth 10 
its arms to smite wrong with reason and truth, secure in the 
power of both. I appeal from the patriarchs of New England 
to the poets of New England ; from Endicott to Lowell ; from 
Winthrop to Longfellow ; from Norton to Holmes ; and I appeal 
in the name and by the rights of that common citizenship — of 15 
that common origin, back both of the Puritan and the Cavalier, 
to which all of us owe our being. Let the dead past, conse- 
crated by the blood of its martyrs, not by its savage hatreds, 
darkened alike by kingcraft and priestcraft — let the dead past 
bury its dead. Let the present and the future ring with the 20 
song of the singers. Blessed be the lessons they teach, the laws 
they make. Blessed be the eye to see, the light to reveal. . Blessed 
be tolerance, sitting ever on the right hand of God to guide 
the way with loving word, as blessed be all that brings us nearer 
the goal of true religion, true republicanism, and true patriot- 25 
ism, distrust of watchwords and labels, shams and heroes, belief 
in our country and ourselves. It was not Cotton Mather, but 
John Greenleaf Whittier, who cried : 

Dear God and Father of us all, 

Forgive our faith in cruel lies, 30 

Forgive the blindness that denies. 

Cast down our idols — overturn 
Our bloody altars — make us see 
Thyself in Thy humanity ! 



EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

John Warwick Daniel 

An oration delivered at the unveiling of the recumbent 
FIGURE OF General Lee, at Washington and Lee Univer- 
sity, Lexington, Virginia, June 28, 1883. 

INTRODUCTION 

John Warwick Daniel, lawyer, politician, and orator, was born in 
Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1 842, and has since made that city his home. 
He fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War, and rose to 
the rank of colonel. After the war he studied law, and soon be- 
came active in politics. He was for some time a member of the 
state legislature, and since 1885 has been United States Senator 
from Virginia. 

Mr. Daniel has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the lead- 
ing speakers in his section, and in the Senate and in Democratic 
national conventions his oratorical talents have commanded a 
wider hearing. Both he and Mr. Cockran have gained attention 
by crossing swords with Mr. Bryan in Democratic nominating 
conventions. 

Mr. Daniel's style, judged by the oration that follows, is some- 
what florid, but perhaps this is in part explained by the subject and 
the occasion. The occasion, which was the unveiling of a statue of 
Robert E. Lee, brought together an audience of about ten thousand 
people, including a large number of ex-Confederates, all in thorough 
sympathy with the speaker. An ex-Confederate himself, Mr. Daniel 
was deeply moved by emotions of loyalty and love — emotions 
which found a ready response in the hearts of his hearers. The 
official report of the proceedings states that " Major Daniel for 
three hours held his audience by the spell of his eloquence, mov- 
ing it now to applause, and now to tears.' 

243 



244 EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

I . Mr. President, my Comrades, and Countrymen : There 
was no happier or loveher home than that of Colonel Robert 
Edward Lee in the spring of 1861, when for the first time its 
threshold was darkened with the omens of civil war. 
5 2 . Crowning the green slopes of the Virginia hills that over- 
look the Potomac, and embowered in stately trees, stood the 
venerable mansion of Arlington, facing a prospect of varied 
and imposing beauty. Its broad porch and widespread wings 
held out open arms, as it were, to welcome the coming guest. 

10 Its simple Doric columns graced domestic comfort with a 
classic air. Its halls and chambers were adorned with the por- 
traits of patriots and heroes, and with illustrations and relics 
of the great Revolution, and of the Father of his Country. 
And within and without, history and tradition seemed to 

15 breathe their legends upon a canvas as soft as a dream of 
peace. 

3. The noble river, which in its history, as well as in its name, 
carries us back to the days when the red man trod its banks, 
sweeps in full and even flow along the forefront of the land- 

20 scape ; while beyond its waters stretch the splendid avenues 
and rise the gleaming spires of Washington ; and over all, the 
great white dome of the National Capitol looms up against the 
eastern sky, like a glory in the air. 

4. Southward and westward, toward the blue rim of the Alle- 
25 ghenies, roll away the pine and oak clad hills, and the fields of 

the "Old Dominion," dotted here and there with the homes of 
a people of simple tastes and upright minds, renowned for 
their devotion to their native land, and for their fierce love of 
liberty ; a people who had drunk into their souls with their 
30 mother's milk, that man is of right, and ought to be, free. 

5 . On the one hand there was impressed upon the most casual 
eye that contemplated the pleasing prospect, the munificence 
and grandeur of American progress, the arts of industry and 
commerce, and the symbols of power. On the other hand, 



DANIEL 245 

Nature seemed to woo the heart back to her sacred haunts, 
with vistas of sparkling waters, and verdant pastures, and 
many a wildwood scene ; and to penetrate its deepest recesses 
with the halcyon charm that ever lingers about the thought 
of Home. 5 

6. The head of the house established here was a man whom 
Nature had richly endowed with graces of person, and high 
qualities of head and heart. Fame had already bound his 
brow with her laurel, and Fortune had poured into his lap her 
golden horn. Himself a soldier, and colonel in the army of 10 
the United States, the son of the renowned " Light Horse 
Harry Lee," who was the devoted friend and compatriot of 
Washington in the Revolutionary struggle, and whose mem- 
orable eulogy upon his august chief has become his epitaph ; 
descended indeed from a long line of illustrious progenitors, 15 
whose names are written on the brightest scrolls of English 
and American history, from the conquest of the Norman at 
Hastings to the triumph of the Continentals at Yorktown, — 
he had already established his own martial fame at Vera Cruz, 
Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Cherubusco, Molino del Rey, Chapul- 20 
tepee, and Mexico, and had proved how little he depended upon 
any merit but his own. Such was his early distinction, that 
when but a captain, the Cuban Junta had offered to make him 
the leader of their revolutionary movement for the independ- 
ence of Cuba, — a position which, as an American officer, he 25 
felt it his duty to decline. And so deep was the impression 
made of his genius and his valor, that General Scott, Com- 
mander in Chief of the army in which he served, had declared 
that he " was the best soldier he ever saw in the field," " the 
greatest military genius in America"; that "if opportunity 30 
offered, he would show himself the foremost captain of his 
times" \ and that " if a great battle were to be fought for the 
liberty or slavery of the country, his judgment was that the 
commander should be Robert Lee." 



246 EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

7. Wedded to her who had been the playmate of his boyhood, 
and who was worthy in every relation to be the companion of 
his bosom, sons and daughters had risen up to call them 
blessed, and there, decorated with his country's honors and sur- 

5 rounded by " love, obedience, and troops of friends," the host 
of Arlington seemed to have filled the measure of generous 
desire with whatever of fame or happiness fortune can add 
to virtue. And had the pilgrim started in quest of some hap- 
pier spot than the Vale of Rasselas, well might he have paused 
10 by this threshold and doffed his " sandal shoon." 

8. So situated was Colonel Lee in the spring of 1 86 1 ,upon the 
verge of the momentous revolution of which he became so 
mighty a pillar and so glorious a chieftain. But we cannot 
estimate the struggle it cost him to take up arms against the 

15 Union, nor the sacrifice he made, nor the pure devotion with 
which he consecrated his sword to his native state, without 
looking beyond his physical surroundings, and following fur- 
ther the suggestions of his history and character, for the springs 
of action which prompted his course. Colonel Lee was emphat- 

20 ically a Union man ; and Virginia, to the crisis of dissolution, 
was a Union state. He loved the Union with a soldier's 
ardent loyalty to the government he served, and with a patriot's 
faith and hope in the institutions of his country. His ances- 
tors had been among the most distinguished and revered of its 

25 founders; his own life from youth upward had been spent and 
his blood shed in its service, and two of his sons, following his 
footsteps, held commissions in the army. 

9. He was born in the same county, and descended from 
the same strains of English blood from which Washington 

30 sprang, and was united in marriage with Mary Custis, the 
daughter of his adopted son. He had been reared in the 
school of simple manners and lofty thoughts which belonged 
to the elder generation; and with Washington as his exem- 
plar of manhood and his ideal of wisdom, he reverenced his 



DANIEL 247 

character and fame and work with a feeHng as near akin to 
worship as any that man can have for aught that is human. 

10. UnHke the statesmen of the hostile sections, who were 
constantly thrown into the provoking conflicts of political 
debate, he had been withdrawn by his military occupations 5 
from scenes calculated to irritate or chill his kindly feelings 
toward the people of the North ; and on the contrary — in 
camp, and field, and social circle — he had formed many ties 

of friendship with its most esteemed soldiers and citizens. 
With the reticence becoming his military office, he had taken 10 
no part in the controversies which preceded the fatal rupture 
between the states — other than the good man's part, to " speak 
the soft answer that turns away wrath," and to plead for that 
forbearance and patience which alone might bring about a 
peaceful solution of the questions at issue. 15 

1 1 . Years of his professional life he had spent in Northern 
communities, and, always a close observer of men and things, 
he well understood the vast resources of that section, and the 
hardy, industrious, and resolute character of its people ; and 
he justly weighed their strength as a military power. When 20 
men spoke of how easily the South would repel invasion he 
said : " You forget that we are all Americans." And when 
they prophesied a battle and a peace, he predicted that it would 
take at least four years to fight out the impending conflict. 
None was more conscious than he that each side undervalued 25 
and misunderstood the other. He was, moreover, deeply 
imbued with the philosophy of history and the course of its 
evolutions, and well knew that in an upheaval of government 
deplorable results would follow which were not thought of in 
the beginning, or, if thought of, would be disavowed, belittled 30 
and deprecated. And eminently conservative in his cast of 
mind and character, every bias of his judgment, as every tend- 
ency of his history, filled him with yearning and aspiration 
for the peace of his country and the perpetuity of the Union. 



248 EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

Is it a wonder then, as the storm of revolution lowered, Colonel 
Lee, then with his regiment, the Second Cavalry, in Texas, 
wrote thus to his son in January, 1861 : 

12. "The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the 
5 acts of the North as you say. I feel the aggression, and am 

wilHng to take any proper steps for redress. It is the principle 
I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an Ameri- 
can citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity 
and institutions, and would defend any state if her rights were 

10 invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the coun- 
try than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumu- 
lation of all evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice 
everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, 
that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is 

15 a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. . . . 
Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayo- 
nets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of 
love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for 
my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If 

20 the Union is dissolved, and the government is disrupted, I 
shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my 
people, and, save in defense, will draw my sword on none." 

13. There was naught on earth that could swerve Robert 
E. Lee from the path where, to his clear comprehension, honor 

25 and duty lay. To the statesman, Mr. Francis Preston Blair, 
who brought him the tender of supreme command of the Union 
forces, he answered : " Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as an- 
archy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I 
would sacrifice them all to the Union. But how can I draw 

30 my sword against Virginia? " 

14. Draw his sword against Virginia? Perish the thought! 
Over all the voices that called him he heard the still small 
voice that ever whispers to the soul of the spot that gave it 



DANIEL 249 

birth, and over every ambitious dream there rose the face of 
the angel that guards the door of home. 

15. On the twentieth of April, as soon as the news of Vir- 
ginia's secession reached him, he resigned his commission in 
the army of the United States, and thus wrote to his sister who 5 
remained with her husband on the Union side : " With all my 
devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of 
an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my 
mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my 
home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the army, 10 
and save in the defense of my native state (with the sincere 
hope that my poor services may never be needed) I hope I 
may never be called upon to draw my sword." 

16. Bidding an affectionate adieu to his old friend and com- 
mander. General Scott, who mourned his loss, but nobly ex- 15 
pressed his confidence in his motives, he repaired to Richmond. 
Governor John Letcher immediately appointed him to the 
commander in chief of the Virginia forces, and the Convention 
unanimously confirmed the nomination. Memorable and impres- 
sive was the scene when he came into the presence of that body 20 
on April 23d. Its venerable president, John Janney, with brief, 
sententious eloquence, addressed him, and concluded saying: 

17. "Sir, we have by this unanimous vote expressed our 
convictions that you are at this day, among the living citizens 

of Virginia, ' first in war.' We pray to God most fervently that 25 
you may so conduct the operations committed to your charge, 
'that it may be said of you that you are 'first in peace,' and 
when that time comes, you will have earned the still prouder 
distinction of being ' first in the hearts of your countrymen.' 
Yesterday your mother, Virginia, placed her sword in your 30 
hand upon the implied condition that we know you will keep 
in letter and in spirit : that you will draw it only in defense, 
and that you will fall with it in your hand rather than the 
object for which it was placed there should fail." 



250 EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

1 8. General Lee thus answered : " Profoundly impressed 
with the solemnity of the occasion, for which I must say I was 
not prepared, I accept the position assigned me by your par- 
tiality. I would have preferred had your choice fallen upon 

5 an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, an approving con- 
science, and the aid of my fellow-citizens, I devote myself to 
the service of my native state, in whose behalf alone will I 
ever again draw my sword." 

19. Thus came Robert E. Lee to the state of his birth and 
10 to the people of his blood in their hour of need ! Thus, with 

as chaste a heart as ever plighted its faith until death, for 
better or for worse, he came to do, to suffer, and to die for us 
who to-day are gathered in awful reverence and in sorrow un- 
speakable to weep our blessings upon his tomb. 

15 20. I pause not here to defend the course of General Lee, 
as that defense may be drawn from the constitution of a 
Republic which was born in the sublime protest of its people 
against bayonet rule, and founded on the bed-rock principle 
of free government, that all free governments " must derive 

20 their just powers from the consent of the governed." I pause 
not to trace the history or define the grounds of that theory 
of constitutional construction which maintained the right of 
secession from the Union as an element of sovereign statehood 
— a theory which has found ablest and noblest advocacy in 

25 every section of the country. The tribunal is not yet formed 
that would hearken to such defense, nor is this the time or 
place to utter it. And to my mind there is for Lee and his 
compatriots a loftier and truer vindication than any that may 
be deduced from codes, constitutions, and conventional articles 

30 of government. A great revolution need never apologize for 
nor explain itself. There it is ! — the august and thrilling rise 
of a whole population ! And the fact that it is there is the 
best evidence of its right to be there. None but great inspira- 
tions underlie great actions. None but great causes can ever 



DANIEL 251 

produce great events. A transient gust of passion may turn a 
crowd into a mob, a temporary impulse may swell a mob into 
a local insurrection ; but when a whole people stand to their 
guns before their hearthstones, and as one man resist what 
they deem aggression ; when for long years they endure pov- 5 
erty and starvation, and dare danger and death to maintain 
principles which they deem sacred ; when they shake a conti- 
nent with their heroic endeavors and fill the world with the glory 
of their achievements, history can make for them no higher vin- 
dication than to point to their deeds and say — "Behold !" 10 

21. A people is its own judge. Under God there can be no 
higher judge for them to seek or court or fear. In the supreme 
moments of national life, as in the lives of individuals, the 
actor must resolve and act within himself alone. The Southern 
states acted for themselves, the Northern states for themselves, 1 5 
Virginia for herself. And when the lines of battle formed, 
Robert Lee took his place in the line beside his people, 
his kindred, his children, his home. Let his defense rest on 
this fact alone. Nature speaks it. Nothing can strengthen it. 
Nothing can weaken it. The historian may compile; the cas- 20 
uist may dissect ; the statesman may expatiate ; the advo- 
cate may plead ; the jurist may expound ; but, after all, there 
can be no stronger or tenderer tie than that which binds the 
faithful heart to kindred and to home. And on that tie — 
stretching from the cradle to the grave, spanning the heavens, 25 
and riveted through eternity to the throne of God on high, and 
underneath in the souls of good men and true — on that tie 
rests, stainless and immortal, the fame of Robert Lee. 

[Here Mr. Daniel traced Lee's career during the Civil War, 
and continued as follows.] 

22. Thus feebly and imperfectly have I attempted to trace 
the military achievements and services of him to whose memory 30 
this day is dedicated. Lee the general stands abreast with 



252 EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

the greatest captains of all time, and Lee the patriot has uni- 
versal homage. It is now of Lee the man that I would speak. 

23. In personal appearance, General Lee was a man whom 
. once to see was ever to remember. His figure was tall, erect, 

5 well proportioned, lithe, and graceful. A fine head, with broad, 
uplifted brow, and features boldly but yet delicately chiseled, 
bore the high aspect of one born to command. The firm yet 
mobile lips and the thickset jaw were expressive of daring 
and resolution ; and the dark scintillant eye flashed with the 

10 light of a brilliant intellect and a fearless spirit. His whole 
countenance, indeed, bespoke alike a powerful mind and 
indomitable will, yet beamed with charity, gentleness, and be- 
nevolence. In his manners, quiet, reserve, unaffected courtesy 
and native dignity, made manifest the character of one who 

15 can only be described by the name of gentleman. And taken 
all in all, his presence possessed that grave and simple majesty 
which commanded instant reverence and repressed familiarity ; 
and yet so charmed by a certain modesty and gracious defer- 
ence that reverence and confidence were ever ready to kindle 

20 into affection. It was impossible to look upon him and not to 
recognize at a glance that in him Nature gave assurance of a 
man created great and good. 

24. Mounted in the field, and at the head of his troops, a 
glimpse of Lee was an inspiration. His figure was as distinctive 

25 as that of Napoleon. Ah ! soldiers ! who can forget it? The 
black slouch hat, the cavalry boots, the dark cape, the plain 
gray coat without an ornament but the three stars on the collar, 
the calm, victorious face, the splendid, manly figure on the 
gray war horse, that steps as if proudly conscious of his rider, 

30 — he looked every inch the true knight, the grand, invincible 
champion of a great principle. 

25. At the bottom of all true heroism is unselfishness. Its 
crowning expression is sacrifice. The world is suspicious of 



DANIEL 253 

vaunted heroes. They are so easily manufactured. So many 
feet are cut and trhnmed to fit Cinderella's slippers that we 
hesitate long before we hail the princess. But when the true 
hero has come, and we know that here he is, in verity, ah ! 
how the hearts of men leap forth to greet him ! how worship- 5 
fully we welcome God's noblest work, — the strong, honest, 
fearless, upright man. 

26. In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us and 
to mankind, and whether we behold him declining command of 
the Federal army to fight the battles and share the miseries of 10 
his own people ; proclaiming on the heights in front of Gettys- 
burg that the fault of the disaster was his own ; leading charges 

in the crisis of combat ; walking under the yoke of conquest 
wnthout a murmur of complaint ; or refusing fortunes to come 
here and train the youth of his country in the path of duty, — 15 
he is ever the same meek, grand, self-sacrificing spirit. Here 
he exhibited qualities not less worthy and heroic than those 
displayed on the broad and open theater of conflict, when the 
eyes of nations watched his every action. Here in the calm 
repose of civil and domestic duties, and in the trying routine 20 
of incessant tasks, he lived a life as high as when, day by day, 
he marshaled and led his thin and wasting lines, and slept by 
night upon the field that was to be drenched again in blood 
upon the morrow. 

27. Here in these quiet walks, far removed from "war or 25 
battle's sound," came into view, as when, the storm o'erpast, 
the mountain seems a pinnacle of light, the landscape beams 
with fresher and tenderer beauties, and the purple, golden 
clouds float above us in the azure depths like the Islands of 
the Blest, so came into view the towering grandeur, the massive 30 
splendor, and the loving-kindness of the character of General 
Lee, and the very sorrows that overhung his life seemed lumi- 
nous with celestial hues. Here he revealed in manifold gracious 
hospitalities, tender charities, and patient, worthy counsels, 



254 EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE 

how deep and pure and inexhaustible were the fountains of his 
virtues. And loving hearts delight to recall, as loving lips will 
ever delight to tell, the thousand little things he did which sent 
forth lines of light to irradiate the gloom of the conquered land, 
5 and to lift up the hopes and cheer the works of the people. 
28. Here, indeed, Lee, no longer the leader, became, as it were, 
the priest of his people, and the young men of Washington Col- 
lege were but a fragment of those who found in his voice and his 
example the shining signs that never misguided their footsteps. 

10 29. Five years rolled by while here "the self-imposed mis- 
sion" of Lee was being accomplished, and now, in 1870, he 
had reached the age of sixty-three. A robust constitution, 
never abused by injurious habits, would doubtless have pro- 
longed his life beyond the threescore years and ten which the 

15 psalmist has ascribed as the allotted term of man; but many 
causes were sapping and undermining it. The exposures of 
two wars in which he had participated, and the tremendous 
strain on nerves and heart and brain which his vast responsibili- 
ties and his accumulated trials had entailed, had been silently 

20 and gradually doing their work ; and now his step had lost 
something of its elasticity, the shoulders began to stoop as if 
under a growing burden, and the ruddy glow of health upon 
his countenance had passed into a feverish flush. Into his 
ears, and into his heart, had been poured the afflictions of his 

25 people, and while composed and self-contained and uncom- 
plaining, who could have looked upon that great face, over 
whose majestic lineaments there stole the shade of sadness, 
without perceiving that grief for those he loved was gnawing 
at the heartstrings? without perceiving in the brilliant eye, 

30 which now and then had a far-away, abstracted gaze, that the 
soul within bore a sorrow " that only Heaven could heal " ? 

30. And now he has vanished from us forever. And is this 
all that is left of him — this handful of dust beneath the 



DANIEL 255 

marble stone? No ! the ages answer as they rise from the gulfs 
of Time, where lie the wrecks of kingdoms and estates, hold- 
ing up in their hands as their only trophies, the names of those 
who have wrought for man in the love and fear of God, and in 
love unfearing for their fellow-men. No ! the present answers, 5 
bending by his tomb. No ! the future answers, as the breath 
of the morning fans its radiant brow, and its soul drinks in 
sweet inspirations from the lovely life of Lee. No ! methinks 
the very heavens echo, as melt into their depths the words of 
reverent love that voice the hearts of men to the tingling stars. 10 

31. Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our mem- 
ories, to purify our hopes, to make strong all good intent 
by communion with the spirit of him who, being dead, yet 
speaketh. Come, child, in thy spotless innocence ; come, 
woman, in thy purity ; come, youth, in thy prime ; come, man- 15 
hood, in thy strength ; come, age, in thy ripe wisdom ; come 
citizen, come soldier, let us strew the roses and lilies of June 
around his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in his life Nature's 
beneficence, and the grave has consecrated that life and given 
it to us all ; let us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem 20 
of his strength, and with the laurel, the emblem of his glory, 
and let these guns, whose voices he knew of old, awake the 
echoes of the mountains, that Nature herself may join in his 
solemn requiem. Come, for here he rests, and 

On this green bank, by this fair stream, 25 

We set to-day a native stone, 
That memory may his deeds redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Come, for here the genius of loftiest poesy in the artist's dream 
and through the sculptor's touch has restored his form and 30 
features — a Valentine has lifted the marble veil and disclosed 
him to us as we would love to look upon him — lying, the 
flower of knighthood, in '' Joyous Gard." His sword beside 
him is sheathed forever. But honor's seal is on his brow, and 



256 EULOGY OP^ ROBERT E. LEE 

valor's star is on his breast, and the peace that passeth all 
understanding descends upon him. Here, not in the hour of 
his grandest triumph of earth, as when, mid the battle roar, 
shouting battalions followed his trenchant sword, and bleeding 

5 veterans forgot their wounds to leap between him and his 
enemies — but here in victory, supreme over earth itself, and 
over death, its conqueror, he rests, his warfare done. 

32. And as we seem to gaze once more on him we loved 
and hailed as chief, in his sweet, dreamless sleep, the tranquil 

10 face is clothed with heaven's light, and the mute hps seem 
eloquent with the message that in life he spoke: ^^ There is 
a true glory and a true honor ; the glory of duty done^ the 
honor of the integrity of principle,^'' 



EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Horace Porter 

A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET OF THE ArMY OF THE 

Tennessee, upon the occasion of the inauguration of 
THE Grant Equestrian Statue, Chicago, October 8, 1891. 

INTRODUCTION 

Horace Porter, soldier, politician, orator, and business man, was 
born at Huntington, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1837. He entered 
the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, but left there for West 
Point, where he graduated in i860, standing third in a class of 
more than forty. He served in the field throughout the entire 
period of the Civil War, passing through every commissioned 
grade up to brigadier general. In the campaign around Chatta- 
nooga he met Grant, who recognized his soldierly abilities, and 
brought him east as an aid-de-camp. Throughout the Wilder- 
ness campaign, and until the final scene of the struggle, he was 
Grant's close personal associate and trusted military aid, and was 
brevetted six times for " gallant and meritorious conduct in action." 
In 1867 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of War under Gen- 
eral Grant, when the latter was serving for a few months in Presi- 
dent Johnson's cabinet. From 1869 to 1877 he was President 
Grant's private secretary. For twenty years thereafter he devoted 
himself to a business career, and became president or director of 
several railway corporations. He has also been prominent as presi- 
dent of the Union League Club, of New York City, and other clubs 
and patriotic societies. Since 1897 he has been the United States 
Minister to France. 

From the foregoing it is plain that General Porter is eminently 
an " all-round man." He has entered many fields and has won the 
highest success in each. As a soldier he attained, as we have seen, 

257 



258 EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT 

a brilliant military record. As a man of business, he has directed 
the interests of half a dozen great corporations, and is a prominent 
ojfficer of New York's most influential mercantile association, — 
the Chamber of Commerce. He is interested in science, and has 
a turn for mechanical invention ; the " chopping box " used on the 
elevated railroads of New York is a patented apparatus of his own 
devising. For public life he has shown an equal aptitude, having 
served this country with distinction as Minister to France. He is 
a writer, a scholar, and a linguist withal, familiar with the classics 
and with several modern languages. 

As an orator for special occasions, and especially as an after- 
dinner speaker, he has been in constant deniand, his popularity being 
rivaled by not more than two or three of his fellow-countrymen. 
He has appeared as the orator on various notable occasions 
(mentioned in the notes), and always acquits himself most satis- 
factorily. His wit is unfailing, his fertility as a 7'aco7iteur appar- 
ently exhaustless. Direct and forcible in delivery, his quick turns 
of thought and striking expressions hold the sustained attention of 
his hearers. 

In pronouncing the following eulogy, General Porter certainly 
possessed the two elements necessary for any orator for any occa- 
sion, — a thorough knowledge of his subject, and sincere and strong 
convictions and feelings regarding it. From the time that Grant 
discovered Porter during the war, the two maintained the closest 
and most affectionate relations toward each other. Further, a feel- 
ing of generosity on General Porter's part was added to that of 
loyalty. If Grant did not make Porter, he aided powerfully in 
giving the latter an opportunity to make himself. Grant recom- 
mended him to his friend, George M. Pullman, president of the 
Pullman Car Company, and it was with this company that General 
Porter began a business career whereby he acquired an independ- 
ent fortune. And reciprocal appreciation was shown by General 
Porter, not alone during Grant's life, but also since his death. 
When the project for the Grant Monument, now erected at River- 
side Park, New York City, was in danger of abandonment. General 
Porter stepped to the front and — as in his recent removal to 
America of the body of Paul Jones — by personal effort rescued 
it from threatened failure. It was, like the oration that follows, 
a graceful and fitting tribute to the memory of his old friend and 
commander. 



PORTER 



259 



1. Mr. Chairman: When a man from the armies of the 
East finds himself in the presence of men of the armies of the 
West, he feels that he cannot strike their gait. He can only 
look at them wistfully and say, in the words of Charles II, " I 
always admired virtue, but I never could imitate it." If I do 5 
not in the course of my remarks succeed in seeing each one 

of you, it will be because the formation of the Army of the 
Tennessee to-night is like its formation in the field, when it 
won its matchless victories, the heavy columns in the center. 

2. Almost all the conspicuous characters in history have 10 
risen to prominence by gradual steps, but Ulysses S. Grant 
seemed to come before the people with a sudden bound. 
Almost the first sight they caught of him was in the flashes of 
his guns, and the blaze of his camp fires, those wintry days 
and nights in front of Donelson. From that hour until the 15 
closing triumph at Appomattox he was the leader whose name 
was the harbinger of victory. From the final sheath of his 
sword until the tragedy on Mount McGregor he was the chief 
citizen of the Republic and the great central figure of the 
world. The story of his life savors more of romance than 20 
reality. It is more like a fabled tale of ancient days than the 
history of an American citizen of the nineteenth century. As 
light and shade produce the most attractive effects in a picture, 

so the singular contrasts, the strange vicissitudes in his mar- 
velous career, surround him with an interest which attaches 25 
to few characters in history. His rise from an obscure lieuten- 
ancy to the command of the veteran armies of the Republic ; 
his transition from a frontier post of the untrodden West to 
the executive mansion of the nation ; his sitting at one time 
in his little store in Galena, not even known to the congress- 30 
man from his own district ; at another time striding through 
the palaces of the Old World, with the descendants of a line 
of kings rising and standing uncovered in his presence — these 
are some of the features of his extraordinary career which 



26o EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT 

appeal to the imagination, excite men's wonder, and fascinate 
all who read the story of his life. 

3. General Grant possessed in a striking degree all the 
characteristics of the successful soldier. His methods were all 

5 stamped with tenacity of purpose, with originality and inge- 
nuity. He depended for his success more upon the powers of 
invention than of adaptation, and the fact that he has been 
compared at different times to nearly every great commander 
in history is perhaps the best proof that he was like none 

10 of them. He was possessed of a moral and physical courage 
which was equal to every emergency in which he was placed ; 
calm amidst excitement, patient under trials, never unduly 
elated by victory or depressed by defeat. While he possessed 
a sensitive nature and a singularly tender heart, yet he never 

15 allowed his sentiments to interfere with the stern duties of the 
soldier. He knew better than to attempt to hew rocks with a 
razor. He realized that paper bullets cannot be fired in war- 
fare. He felt that the hardest blows bring the quickest results ; 
that more men die from disease in sickly camps than from 

20 shot and shell in battle. 

4. His magnanimity to foes, his generosity to friends, will 
be talked of as long as manly qualities are honored. You 
know after Vicksburg had succumbed to him he said in his 
order : '' The garrison will march out to-morrow. Instruct 

25 your commands to be quiet and orderly as the prisoners pass 
by, and make no offensive remarks." After Lee's surrender 
at Appomattox, when our batteries began to fire triumphal 
salutes, he at once suppressed them, saying in his order : 
" The war is over ; the rebels are again our countrymen ; the 

30 best way to celebrate the victory will be to abstain from all 
demonstrations in the field." After the war General Lee and 
his officers were indicted in the civil courts of Virginia by 
direction of a President who was endeavoring to make treason 
odious and succeeding in making nothing so odious as himself. 



PORTER 261 

General Lee appealed to his old antagonist for protection. 
He did not appeal to that heart in vain. General Grant at 
once took up the cudgels in his defense, threatened to resign 
his office if such officers were indicted while they continued 
to obey their paroles, and such was the logic of his argument 5 
and the force of his character that those indictments were 
soon after quashed. So that he penned no idle platitude, he 
fashioned no stilted epigram, he spoke the earnest convictions 
of an honest heart when he said, " Let us have peace." He 
never tired of giving unstinted praise to worthy subordinates for 10 
the work they did. Like the chief artists who weave the 
Gobelin tapestries, he was content to stand behind the cloth 
and let those in front appear to be the chief contributors to 
the beauty of the fabric. 

5. If there be one single word in all the wealth of the Eng- 15 
lish language which best describes the predominating trait of 
General Grant's character, that word is "loyalty." Loyal to 
every great cause and work he was engaged in ; loyal to his 
friends, loyal to his family, loyal to his country, loyal to his 
God. This produced a reciprocal effect in all who came in 20 
contact with him. It was one of the chief reasons why men 
became so loyally attached to him. It is true that this trait so 
dominated his whole character that it led him to make mis- 
takes, it induced him to continue to stand by men who were 
no longer worthy of his confidence ; but after all, it was a 25 
trait so grand, so noble, we do not stop to count the errors 
which resulted. It showed him to be a man who had the 
courage to be just, to stand between worthy men and their 
unworthy slanderers, and to let kindly sentiments have a voice 
in an age in which the heart played so small a part in public 30 
life. Many a public man has had hosts of followers because 
they fattened on the patronage dispensed at his hands ; many 
a one has had troops of adherents because they were blind 
zealots in a cause he represented ; but perhaps no man but 



262 EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT 

General Grant had so many friends who loved him for his 
own sake, whose attachment strengthened only with time, 
whose affection knew neither variableness nor shadow of 
turning, who stuck to him as closely as the toga of Nessus, 
5 whether he was captain, general. President, or simply private 
citizen. 

6. General Grant was essentially created for great emergen- 
cies ; it was the very magnitude of the task which called forth 
the powers which mastered it. In ordinary matters he was an 

lo ordinary man. In momentous affairs he towered as a giant. 
When he served in a company there was nothing in his acts to 
distinguish him from the fellow-officers ; but when he wielded 
corps and armies the great qualities of the commander flashed 
forth and his master strokes of genius placed him at once in 

15 the front rank of the world's great captains. When he hauled 
wood from his little farm and sold it in the streets of St. Louis 
there was nothing in his business or financial capacity different 
from that of the small farmers about him ; but when, as Presi- 
dent of the Republic, he found it his duty to puncture the 

20 fallacy of the inflationists, to throttle by a veto the attempt of 
unwise legislators to tamper with the American credit, he 
penned a State paper so logical, so masterly, that it has ever 
since been the pride, wonder, and admiration of every lover 
of an honest currency. He was made for great things, not 

25 for little. He could collect for the nation ^15,000,000 
from Great Britain in settlement of the Alaba?na claims ; he 
could not protect his own personal savings from the mis- 
creants who robbed him in Wall Street. 

7. But General Grant needs no eulogist. His name is 
30 indelibly engraved upon the hearts of his countrymen. His 

services attest his greatness. He did his duty and trusted to 
history for his meed of praise. The more history discusses 
him, the more brilliant becomes the luster of his deeds. His 
record is like a torch, — the more it is shaken, the brighter it 



PORTER 263 

burns. His name will stand imperishable when epitaphs have 
vanished utterly, and monuments and statues have crumbled 
into dust ; but the people of this great city, everywhere renowned 
for their deeds of generosity, have covered it anew with glory in 
fashioning in enduring bronze, in rearing in monumental rock 5 
that magnificent tribute to his worth which was to-day unveiled 
in the presence of countless thousands. As I gazed upon its 
graceful lines and colossal proportions I was reminded of that 
childlike simplicity which was mingled with the majestic 
grandeur of his nature. The memories clustering about it will 10 
recall the heroic age of the Republic ; it will point the path 
of loyalty to children yet unborn ; its mute eloquence will 
plead for equal sacrifice, should war ever again threaten the 
nation's life ; generations yet to come will pause to read the 
inscription which it bears, and the voices of a grateful people 15 
will ascend from the consecrated spot on which it stands, as 
incense rises from holy places, invoking blessings upon the 
memory of him who had filled to the very full the largest 
measure of human greatness and covered the earth with his 
renown. 20 

8. During his last illness an indescribably touching incident 
happened which will ever be memorable and which never can 
be effaced from the memory of those who witnessed it. Even 
at this late date' I can scarcely trust my own feehngs to recall 
it. It was on Decoration Day in the city of New York, the last 25 
one he ever saw on earth. That morning the members of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans in that vicinity, 
arose earlier than was their wont. They seemed to spend 
more time that morning in unfurling the old battle flags, in 
burnishing the medals of honor which decorated their breasts, 30 
for on that day they had determined to march by the house of 
their dying commander to give him a last marching salute. In 
the streets the columns were forming ; inside the house, on that 
bed from which he was never to rise again, lay the stricken 



264 EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT 

chief. The hand which had seized the surrendered swords of 
countless thousands could scarcely return the pressure of the 
friendly grasp. The voice which had cheered on to triumphant 
victory the legions of America's manhood could no longer 
5 call for the cooling draught which slaked the thirst of a fevered 
tongue ; and prostrate on that bed of anguish lay the form 
which in the New World had ridden at the head of conquering 
columns, which in the Old World had been deemed worthy to 
stand with head covered and feet sandaled in the presence of 

JO princes, kings, and emperors. Now his ear caught the sound of 
martial music. Bands were playing the same strains which 
had mingled with the echoes of his guns at Vicksburg, the 
same quicksteps to which his men had sped in hot haste in 
pursuit of Lee through Virginia. And then came the heavy, 

15 measured steps of moving columns, a step which can be 
acquired only by years of service in the field. He recognized 
it all now. It was the tread of his old veterans. With his 
little remaining strength he arose and dragged himself to the 
window. As he gazed upon those battle flags dipping to him 

20 in salute, those precious standards bullet-riddled, battle-stained, 
but remnants of their former selves, with scarcely enough left 
of them on which to print the names of the battles they had 
seen, his eyes once more kindled with the flames which had 
lighted them at Shiloh, on the heights of Chattanooga, amid 

25 the glories of Appomattox, and as those war-scarred veterans 
looked with uncovered heads and upturned faces for the last 
time upon the pallid features of their old chief, cheeks which 
had been bronzed by Southern suns and begrimed with powder 
were bathed in tears of manly grief. Soon they saw rising the 

30 hand which had so often pointed out to them the path of 
victory. He raised it slowly and painfully to his head in 
recognition of their salutations. The last of the columns had 
passed, the hand fell heavily by his side. It was his last 
military salute. 



THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD 

DEEDS 

Thomas Brackett Reed 

An address delivered at the semicentennial of Girard 
College, January 3, 1898. 

INTRODUCTION 

Thomas Brackett Reed, lawyer and statesman, " Czar " of the 
House of Representatives from 1889 to 1899, was born in Port- 
land, Maine, October 18, 1839, He worked his way through 
college, graduating from Bowdoin in i860 with high honors both 
for scholarship and literary talent. He taught school, acted as 
paymaster in the navy for a year during the Civil War, studied 
law, began practice at Portland, but soon entered politics, and 
after holding several State offices was elected to Congress in 1876 
on the Republican ticket. His subsequent career is chiefly remem- 
bered for the part he played as member, and particularly as 
Speaker, of the House of Representatives. Here he at once 
became a power because of his readiness in debate, his easy mas- 
tery of important political issues, and his remarkable executive 
ability in managing and controlling men and factions. Elected 
Speaker of the House in the Fifty-first Congress, the vigor of his 
administration at once attracted widespread attention. His rulings 
became widely famous. One of his methods was to complete a 
quorum by ordering recorded as present on the roll call the names 
of Democrats present who did not answer to the roll call, thereby 
reversing the practice of the House. The resulting assaults upon 
him as " Czar," which were essentially just, did not in the slightest 
degree disturb his equanimity, and he lived to see his rulings jus- 
tified in popular approval, since they stopped the dangerous blocking 

265 



266 THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD DEEDS 

of the public work. On April 20, 1 899, Mr. Reed announced his 
retirement from political life, ending his speakership with the close 
of the Fifty-fifth Congress. After a brief period of renewed law 
practice in New York City he died, December 7, 1902. 

With the allaying of the party strife engendered during his 
political career, Mr. Reed has come to be generally regarded as 
one of the nation's strong men. Strength, intellectual and moral, 
was his most pronounced characteristic. For twenty-two years 
consecutively he was leader of his party in Congress, either on the 
floor of the House or in the Speaker's chair. This long lease of 
power was rendered possible not alone because of superior intel- 
lectual qualities for leadership, but also "because of strong moral 
qualities. It was Mr. Reed's moral force which enabled him to 
eventually maintain his revolutionary rulings, for his integrity and 
sense of honor were beyond the question of his political adver- 
saries, even when their animosities were most bitter and pas- 
sionate. Honorable Joseph G. Cannon says of him, " Thomas B. 
Reed was the strongest intellectual force, crossed on the best 
courage, among all men in public life whom I have known." 

For the most part Mr. Reed's public speaking was of course in 
the field of political oratory. Herein he stood preeminent. His 
epigrams were frequently used with more effect by campaign 
managers than other men's whole speeches. Mr. Reed had at 
least a theoretical dislike for mere oratory. He is reported to have 
thanked Heaven that the Ho.use of Representatives was not a 
deliberative body. He also disliked long speeches. He thought 
that a man ought to be able to say all that was worth saying in a 
short speech. This predilection for brevity, the lawyer's instinct 
for seizing upon the strong points of a case, and also skill in 
oratory proper — elevation of sentiment and adequacy of expres- 
sion — are well illustrated in the following oration. 

I. Six hundred and fifty or seventy years ago, England, 
which, during the following period of nearly seven centuries, 
has been the richest nation on the face of the globe, began to 
establish the two great universities which, from the banks of 
5 the Cam and the Isis, have sent forth great scholars and 
priests and statesmen whose fame is the history of their own 



REED 267 

country, and whose deeds have been part of the history of 
every land and sea. During all that long period, reaching back 
two hundred and fifty years before it was ever dreamed that 
this great hemisphere existed, before the world knew that it 
was swinging in the air and rolling about the sun, kings and 5 
cardinals, nobles and great churchmen, the learned and the 
pious, began bestowing upon those abodes of scholars their 
gifts of land and money, and they have continued their bene- 
factions down to our time. What those universities, with all 
their colleges and halls teeming with scholars for six hundred 10 
years, have done for the progress of civilization and the good 
of man, this whole evening could not begin to tell. Even 
your imaginations cannot, at this moment, create the sur- 
prising picture. Nevertheless, the institution at which most of 
you are, or have been, pupils is at the beginning of a career 15 
with which those great universities and their great history may 
struggle in vain for the palm of the greatest usefulness to the 
race of man. One single fact will make it evident that this possi- 
bility is not the creation of imagination or the product of that 
boastfulness which America will some day feel herself too great 20 
to cherish, but a simple and plain possibility which has the 
sanction of mathematics as well as hope. 

2. Although more than six centuries of regal, princely, and 
pious donations have been poured into the purses of these 
venerable aids to learning, the munificence of one American 25 
citizen to-day affords an endowment income equal to that 
of each university, and when the full century has completed 
his work, will afford an income superior to the income of both. 
When Time has done his perfect work, Stephen Girard, mari- 
ner and merchant, may be found to have come nearer immor- 30 
tality than the long procession of kings and cardinals, nobles 
and statesmen, whose power was mighty in their own days, but 
who are only on their way to oblivion. I am well aware that 
this college of orphans, wherein the wisdom of the founder 



268 THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD DEEDS 

requires facts and things to be taught rather than words and 
signs, can as yet make no claim to that higher learning so 
essential to the ultimate progress of the world ; but it has its 
own mission as great and as high, and one which connects 
5 itself more nearly with the practical elevation of mankind. 

3. Whether the overruhng Providence, of which we talk so 
much and know so little, has each of us in His kindly care 
and keeping, we shall better know when our minds have the 
broader scope which immortality will make possible. But, 

10 however men may dispute over individual care, His care over 
the race as a whole fills all the pages of human history. Unity 
and progress are the watchwords of the Divine guidance, and 
no matter how harsh has been the treatment by one man of 
thousands of men, every great event, or series of events, has 

15 been for the good of the race. Were this the proper time, I 
could show that wars — and wars ought to be banished for- 
ever from the face of the earth ; that pestilences — and the 
time is coming when they will be no more ; that persecutions 
and inquisitions — and liberty of thought is the richest pearl of 

20 life, — that all these things, wars, pestilences, and persecu- 
tions, were but helps to the unity of mankind. All things, 
including our own natures, bind us together for deep and 
unrelenting purpose. 

4. Think what we should be, who are unlearned and brutish, 
25 if the wise, the learned, and the good could separate them- 
selves from us ; were free from our superstitions and vague 
and foolish fears, and stood loftily by themselves, wrapped in 
their own superior wisdom. Therefore hath it been wisely 
ordained that no set of creatures of our race shall be beyond 

30 the reach of their helping hand ; so lofty that they will not 
fear our reproaches, or so mighty as to be beyond our reach. 
If the lofty and the learned do not lift us up, we drag them 
down. But unity is riot the only watchword ; there must be 
progress also. Since, by a law we cannot evade, we are to 



REED 269 

keep together, and since we are to progress, we must do it 
together, and nobody must be left behind. This is not a 
matter of philosophy ; it is a matter of fact. No progress 
which did not lift all, ever lifted any. If we let the poison of 
filth diseases percolate through the hovels of the poor, death 5 
knocks at the palace gates. If we leave to the greater horror 
of ignorance any portion of our race, the consequences of 
ignorance strike us all, and there is no escape. We must all 
move, but we must all keep together. It is only when the 
rear guard comes up that the vanguard can go on. 10 

5. Stephen Girard must have understood this. He took 
under his charge the progress of those who needed his aid, 
knowing that if they were added to the list of good citizens, 
to the catalogue of moral, enterprising, and useful men, there 
was so much added, not to their happiness only, but to the 15 
welfare of the race to which he belonged. For his orphans 
the vanguard need not wait. Your founder also understood 
what education was. Most men brought up as he was on ship- 
board and on shore, with few books and fewer studies, if they 
cared for learning at all, would have had for learning an 20 
uncouth reverence, such as the savage has for his idol, a rev- 
erence for the fancied magnificence of the unknown. This 
would have led him to establish a university devoted to out-of- 
the-way learning beyond his ken, or to link his name to glo- 
ries to which he could not aspire. But the man who named 25 
his vessels after the great French authors of his age, and 
who read their works himself, knew from them and from his 
own laborious and successful life that learning was not all of 
education, and so gave his orphans an entrance into a prac- 
tical world with such learning as left the whole field of 30 
learning before them, if they wanted it, with power to make 
fortunes besides. 

6. It is strange to watch the growth into fame and respect 
and reverence of Stephen Girard, as his plan of conferring a 



2/0 THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD DEEDS 

benefaction upon the city and the people whom he loved has 
slowly unfolded itself before their gaze. The generation in 
which he lives can seldom understand the really great man. 
We live for to-day, and he lives for a day after to-day. He 
5 takes on the century in which he lives and a hundred years 
after he has passed away. The man of mediocrity must make 
his hay under the shine of the present sun, and so must clasp 
every hand he can touch and make us think he loves us all. 
But the greatest merchant of his time, with the noblest ambi- 

lo tion of them all, was so resolute in his pursuit of wealth and 
so coldly determined in all his endeavors that he seems to 
have uncovered to few or to none the generous purpose of 
his heart. What he said to the man who was so unworthy to 
write his first biography, but who was forced to bless when 

15 he had gone forth to curse, is the secret of his career. " My 
actions must make my life," he said, and of his life not one 
moment was wasted. " Facts and things rather than words 
and signs " were the warp and woof of his existence. No 
wonder he left the injunction that this should be the teaching 

20 of those objects of his bounty into whose faces he was never 
to look. 

7 . The vast wealth which Mr. Girard had was of itself alone 
evidence of greatness. I have not forgotten the epitaph on 
Colonel Charters, who died rich and infamous, that you could 

25 see what God thought of riches by the people He gave them 
to. Fortunes may be made and lost. Fortunes may be inherited. 
These things mean nothing. But the fortune which has given 
us all our surroundings to-night was made and firmly held in 
a hand of eighty years. That meant greatness. But when the 

30 dead hand opens and pours the rich bloom of a preparation 
for life over six thousand boys in the half -century which has 
gone and thousands in the centuries to come, that means more 
than greatness. Mr. Girard gave more than his money. He 
put into his enterprise his own powerful brain, and, like the 



REED 



271 



ships he sent to sea, long after his death the adventure came 
home laden, not with the results of his capital alone, but of 
his forethought and his genius. He builded for so many years 
that the stars will be cold before his work is finished. We 
envious people, who cannot be wealthy any more than we can 5 
add a cubit to our stature, avenge ourselves by thinking and 
proclaiming that pursuit of wealth is sordid and stifles the 
nobler sentiments of the soul. Whether this be so or not, if 
whoever makes to grow two blades of grass where but one 
grew before is a benefactor of his race, he also is a benefactor 10 
who makes two ships sail the sea where but one encountered 
its storms before. However sordid the owner may be, this is 
a benefit of which he cannot deprive the world. 

8. That men who have achieved great riches are not always 
shut out by their riches from the nobler emotions, Stephen 15 
Girard was himself a most illustrious example. A hundred 
years ago this city was under the black horror of a plague. So 
terrible was the fear that fell upon the city, that the tenderest 

of domestic ties — the love of husband and wife and of parents 
for children — seemed obliterated. Even gold lost its power 20 
in the multitudinous presence of impending death. There was 
no refuge even in the hospital, which, reeking with disease, 
was a hell out of which there was no redemption. Neither 
money nor affection could buy service. '' Fear was on every 
soul." 25 

9. Mr. Girard was then in the prime of Hfe, forty-two years 
old, in health and strength, already rich, and with a future as 
secure as ever falls to human lot. Of his own accord, as a 
volunteer, he took charge of the interior of the deadly hospital, 
and for two long and weary months stood face to face with 30 
death. 

ID. A poet himself has sung in vain of what makes the little 
songs linger in our hearts for ages, while epics perish and 
tragedies pass out of sight. Why this is so we shall never know 



2/2 THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD DEEDS = 

I 
by reason alone. Way down in the human heart there is a ten- 
derness for self-sacrifice which makes it seem loftier than the j 
love of glory, and reveals the possibility of the eternal soul. ■ 
Wars and sieges pass away and great intellectual efforts cease . | 
5 to stir our hearts, but the man who sacrifices himself for his ; 
fellow lives forever. We forget the war in which was the siege j 
of Zutphen, and almost the city itself, but we shall never forget . 
the death of Sir Phihp Sidney. Scholars alone read the work 
of his life, but all mankind honors him in the story of his death. 

lo The great war of the Crimea, in our own day, with its generals i 

and marshals, and its bands of storming soldiery, has almost . 

passed from our memories, but the time will never come when { 

the charge of Balaklava will cease to stir the heart or pass from i 

story or from song. It happened to Stephen Girard, mariner 1 

15 and merchant, seeking wealth and finding it, whose ships j 

covered every sea, whose intellect penetrated, as your treas- ; 

urer's books will show, a hundred years into the future, to light ; 

up his life by a deed more noble than the dying courtesy of j 

Sidney and braver than the charge of the six hundred, for he j 

20 walked under his own orders day by day and week by week, >. 

shoulder to shoulder with death, and was not afraid. How fit, i 

indeed, it is that amidst these temples which are the tribute i 

to his intellect should stand the tablet which is the tribute to | 

his heart ! ) 

25 II. Surely, if the immortal dead, serene with the wisdom of 

eternity, are not above all joy and pride, he must feel a thrill : 

to know that no mariner or merchant ever sent forth a venture | 

upon unknown seas which came back with richer cargoes or in \ 

statelier ships. ■ 



TRIBUTE TO MARCUS A. HANNA 

Albert Jeremiah Beveridge 

A EULOGY AT THE HaNNA MEMORIAL IN THE UNITED STATES 

Senate, April 7, 1904. 

INTRODUCTION 

Albert J. Beveridge, lawyer, statesman, and orator, was born on 
the border of Adam and Highland counties, Ohio, October 6, 1862. 
After the Civil War his family removed to Illinois. He received 
a common and high school education, worked his way through col- 
lege, and was graduated from DePauw University in 1885. Soon 
thereafter he was admitted to the bar, and began the practice 
of law at Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1899 he was elected United 
States Senator from Indiana, being at that time the youngest mem- 
ber of the Senate. He soon became widely known through his 
public speeches, both in the Senate and on the hustings. He fer- 
vidly supported the administration's Philippine policy, and has 
become recognized as the leading sponsor for that policy in Con- 
gress. As a result of a trip to the Orient, he is the author of a 
book on the Eastern question. The Russian Advance (1903). 

Endowed with native ability, Mr. Beveridge has won his spurs 
by aiming high and working hard. He is generally admired as a 
fine type of the young American in public life. Says Mr. Albert 
Shaw, in the Review of Reviews for January, 1905 : 

" Senator Beveridge brings a clear head and a firm will into the 
United States Senate. . . . He is very much more than a good 
orator, a good lawyer, a good legislator, and a good politician. He 
is a man of good conscience, of fidelity, of courage, and of patriot- 
ism. Whatever faults he may possess, — and doubtless he has some, 
— he has the virtues and the essential qualities of a statesman." 

273 



2/4 TRIBUTE TO MARCUS A. HANNA 

Mr. Beveridge is considered one of the best speakers in Con- 
gress, and he enjoys a national reputation as a campaign orator. 
While pursuing his college course he gave particular attention to 
the theory and practice of oratory. He took a leading place in the 
college literary society, and there won immediate success as an 
orator, debater, and organizer. In 1 899-1 900 he wrote a series of 
articles for the Saturday Evening Post, which furnish a good 
exposition of his ideas regarding oratory, both as to manner and 
matter. He stresses the need of directness and earnestness in 
delivery, and the avoidance of tricks and artificialities. " As to 
matter and style," he says, " aim only to be clear. Nothing else is 
essential." 

While Congressional oratory is not highly rated, as a rule, still 
on those occasions set apart for commemorating deceased members, 
when the speakers take time for preparation in advance, eulogies 
of a high order of merit are delivered. In thought and expression, 
the following tribute will bear careful study as an example of the 
briefer form of eulogy. 

1. Mr. President : Since to all earthly work an end must 
come, our words of farewell to a fellow- workman should not 
alone be those of grief that man's common lot has come to him, 
but also of pride and joy that his task has been done worthily. 

S Powerful men so weave themselves into their hour that, for the 
moment, it all but seems the world will stop when they depart. 
Yet it does not stop or even pause. Undisturbed Time still 
wings his endless and unwearied flight ; and the progress of 
the race goes on and up toward the light, realizing at every 
10 step more and more of the true, the beautiful, and the good. 

2 . So it is not important that any of us should long remain ; 
the Master Builder lacks not craftsmen to take our place. But 
it is important to the uttermost that while we are here we 
should do our duty to the full perfection of our powers, fear- 

15 lessly and faithfully, with clean hands, and hearts ever full of 
kindness, forbearance, charity. 

3. These are the outline thoughts that the absence of our 
friend compels. With his whole strength he did his work from 



BEVERIDGE 275 

boyhood to the place of rest. He was no miser of his life — 
he poured it into discharge of duty, keeping with nature no 
account of heart beats. 

4. The things he did were real things. He was the very 
spirit of the practical. Yet the practical did not kill or even 5 
impair the human in him. He never lost the gift of lovable- 
ness. His sense of human touch and fellowship was not dulled, 
but made more delicate by time and the world. The years 
made him wiser, but they made him mellower, too. 

5. And so he won the people's affection as well as their 10 
applause. And affection is worth more than applause. There 

is no greater glory than this — to make a nation your friend. 
Senator Hanna did that. For when the angel of peace, which 
men call Death, took our brother to his well-earned rest, the 
people knew that a friend had left them. And the people were 15 
sad that he- had gone away. 

6. This human quality in him made all he did a living thing, 
all he said a living word. He was the man of affairs in states- 
manship; yet his personality gave to propositions of mere 
national business something of the warmth and vitality of prin- 20 
ciples. He was the personification of our commercial age, — 
the age of building, planting, reaping ; of ships on ocean, and 
on land steel highways and the rolling wheels of trade ; of that 
movement of the times which knits together with something 
more than verbal ties all the children of men, weaves tangible 25 
civilization around the globe, and will, in time, make of all 
peoples neighbors, brothers, friends. 

7. Thus he was, unwittingly no doubt, one of the agents of 
God's great purpose of the unification of the race. We are all 
such agents, small or great. If this is not so — if we are not, 30 
ignorantly perhaps and bUndly, but still surely, spinning our 
lives into the Master's design, whose pattern He alone can 
comprehend ; if we and all things are not working together 
for good; if life is but a breath exhaled and then forever 



2/6 TRIBUTE TO MARCUS A. HANNA 

lost — our work means less and is worth less than that of coral 
insects, which, from the depths, build ever toward the light 
until islands stand above the waves, permanent monuments of 
an intelligent architecture. 

5 8. Work with real things ^^— real earth, real ocean, real 
mountains, real men — made him conservative. And his con- 
servatism was real. Much that is accepted as conservatism is 
spurious, mere make-believe. Conservatism does not mean 
doubt or indecision. It does not mean wise looks, masking 

lo vacuity, nor pompous phrase, as meaningless as it is solemn. 
Conservatism means clear common sense, which equally rejects 
the fanaticism of precedent and the fanaticism of change. It 
would not have midnight last just because it exists ; and yet it 
knows that dawn comes not in a flash, but gradually — comes 

15 with a grand and beautiful moderation. So the conservative 
is the real statesman. He brings things to pass in a way that 
lasts and does good. Senator Hanna was a conservative. 

9. Working with real things among real men also kept fresh 
his faith and hope. No sailor of the seas, no delver in the 

20 earth, no builder of rooftrees can be a pessimist. He who 
plants doubts not our common mother's generosity, or fails to 
see in the brown furrow the certainty of coming harvests. He 
who sinks a well and witnesses the waters rise understands that 
the eternal fountains will never cease to flow. Only the man 

25 whose hands never touch the realities of life despairs of hu- 
man progress or doubts the providence of God. The fable 
of Antaeus is literal truth for body, mind, and soul. And so 
Senator Hanna, dealing with living men and the actualities of 
existence, had all the virile hope of youth, all the unquestion- 

30 ing faith of prophecy. These are the qualities of the effective 
leadership of men. 

10. He is gone from us — gone before us. Strength and 
frailty, kindness and wrath, wisdom and folly, laughter and 
frown, all the elements of life and his living of it have ceased 



BEVERIDGE 277 

their visible play and action. '* Where," said despairing Villon, 
"where are the snows of yesteryear?" Vanished, he would 
have us believe. Yes, but vanished only in form. "The snows 
of yesteryear " are in the stream, in cloud and rain, in sap of 
tree and bloom of flower, in heart and brain of talent and 5 
of beauty. Nothing is lost even here on our ancient and 
kindly earth. So the energies of our friend, and those of all 
men, have touched into activity forces that, influencing still 
others, will move on forever. 

II. As to the other hfe, we know not fully what it is ; but 10 
that it is, we know. Knowing this, we who are left behind go 
on about our daily tasks, assured that in another and truer 
existence our friend is now established, weakness cast aside as 
a cloak when winter has passed, vision clear as when at dawn 
we wake from dreams, heart happy as when, the victory won, 15 
we cease from effort and from care. For him the night is 
done, and it is written that "joy cometh in the morning." 



MARSHALL AND THE 
CONSTITUTION 

William Bourke Cockran 

An address delivered before the Erie County Bar Associ- 
ation, Buffalo, New York, February 14, 1901, upon the 

OCCASION OF the CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF MARSHALL'S 

appointment as Chief Justice of the United States 
Supreme Court. 

INTRODUCTION 

William Bourke Cockran, lawyer, politician, and orator, is one 
of the many men of Irish birth who have become noted as Amer- 
ican orators. He was born in Ireland, February 28, 1854. He was 
educated in that country and in France, migrating to the United 
States in 1871. For five years he taught school in New York, 
studying law at the same time. In 1876 he was admitted to the 
New York State bar, and soon took a prominent part in state poli- 
tics. His ability as a lawyer gained for him a place on the New 
York commission for revising the judiciary clause of the State Con- 
stitution. In 1882 he became counsel to the sheriff of New York 
City, and was reappointed in 1885. In politics Mr, Cockran is a 
"gold" Democrat. He supported McKinley for the presidency in 
1896, but advocated the election of Bryan in 1900 on account of 
the " imperialism " issue. With some intermissions, he has repre- 
sented New York in Congress since 1886. 

Mr. Cockran is a ready, polished, and eloquent speaker. As a 
campaign orator he has been a tower of strength to whatever side 
he espoused, and he is also a favorite as an orator for special 
occasions. He is a man with a strong personal magnetism, his 
speeches losing not a little in the reading. He himself says in a 

279 



28o MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION 

letter to the editor : " Nearly all my speeches have been extempo- 
raneous, ... It is hard for me to say which I consider the best, 
or indeed, that I think any of them meritorious. As I read them 
now my principal feeling is one of surprise at the measure of 
success which they achieved when delivered." 

1 . If there be any one capable of disputing that, aside from 
the establishment of Christianity, the foundation of this Repub- 
lic was the most memorable event in the history of man, we 
would not be apt to seek him at this board or to find him in 

5 this country. And if the foundation of this government be the 
most momentous human achievement" of all the centuries, 
then clearly the appointment of John Marshall to the Chief 
Justiceship of the United States was the first event of the last 
century no less in the magnitude of its importance than in the 

lo order of its occurrence. 

2. To the judicial career whose initial stage we celebrate 
this country mainly owes its independent Judiciary, — the 
unique feature of our political system, the distinctive con- 

- tribution of American democracy to the civilization of the 

15 wdrld, the vital principle of constitutional freedom, — on 

which depend the strength which this government possesses, 

the fruit which it has borne, the cloudless prospect which it 

enjoys. 

3. It is certainly beyond dispute that this government, 
20 which is the freest, is also the most stable in the world. 

During the period of its existence what changes have swept 
over the earth ; what upheavals have convulsed society ; what 
dynasties have been established and overthrown ; what empires 
have risen and fallen ; what political enterprises have been 
25 undertaken and abandoned ; what constitutions framed in high 
hopes have perished in disappointment and confusion ! It has 
seen the Whig oligarchy, which ruled England for a century 
and a half, give place to a republic preserving the outward 
form of monarchy only to veil the democratic character of its 



COCKRAN 281 

evolution. It has seen the king who aided these colonies to 
achieve their liberty immolated on the scaffold in the name of 
liberty, and France, after staggering through anarchy to mili- 
tary despotism, sink back into monarchy ; and after again 
overturning thrones and stumbling once more into imperialism, 5 
while groping towards republicanism, engage in a third attempt 
to establish some form of cons.titutional freedom. 

4. It has seen Prussia rise from the ashes of defeat and 
humiliation, and after humbling the pride of the Hapsburgs 
assume the military primacy of Europe when her king-, raised 10 
to imperial dignity on the bucklers of his triumphant soldiery, 
proclaimed a new empire of Germany in the conquered halls 

of Louis the Magnificent. It has seen the Republic of Venice 
perish in its age and decay ; the German principalities dis- 
appear from the banks of the Rhine ; the ancient city of Leo 1 5 
and of Gregory become the capital of a new kingdom, and 
Spain begin to recover in the cultivation of her own lands 
the prosperity which she sacrificed in attempts to conquer 
other lands. It has seen the veil of darkness and ignorance 
rent in the East. As I speak, it sees the forces of Western 20 
civilization standing in the battered gateways of Far Cathay. 
And through all these changes, convulsions, revolutions, this 
Republic stands to-day, as it went into operation one hundred 
and twelve years ago, unchanged in any of its essential features, 
except that its foundations have sunk deeper in the affections 25 
of the people whose security it has maintained, whose pros- 
perity it has promoted, whose conditions it has blessed. 

5. To what must we attribute this stability which has main- 
tained our government unmoved and apparently immovable on 
solid foundations amid the upheavals which have engulfed 30 
ancient systems? It is not explained by the lofty purpose 
which animated its founders, because other governments con- 
ceived in equally high aspirations have perished at the first 
attempt to put them in practical operation. It is not because 



282 MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION 

it rests on a written constitution, for the pathway of man is 
strewn with the wrecks of constitutional experiments. It is 
not because our Constitution declares certain elementary 
rights of man to be inviolable. Its provisions in this respect 
5 were modeled on existing institutions. Their very language 
was not original. In terms as well as in substance they were 
borrowed from other charters of liberty. The French Con- 
stitution of 1793 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, 
which was made a part of it, contained even more elaborate 

10 provisions for the safety of the individual. But while the 
French Constitution was munificent in its promises of privi- 
leges to the citizen, the means which it adopted to secure 
them were inadequate and indeed puerile. You remember 
. how that remarkable document sought to enforce its provisions 

15 by directing the Constitution to be "written upon tablets and 
placed in the midst of the legislative body and in public 
places," that in the language of the Declaration "the people 
may always have before its eyes the fundamental pillars of its 
liberty and strength, and the authorities the standard of their 

20 duties, and the legislator the object of his problem." The 
Constitution was placed " under the guarantee of all the 
virtues," and the Declaration concluded by solemnly enacting 
that " resistance to oppression is the inference from the other 
rights of man. It is oppression of the whole society if but 

25 one of its members be oppressed. When government violates 
the rights of the people, insurrection of the people and of 
every single part of it is the most sacred of its rights and the 
highest of its duties." 

6. The framers of that Constitution made the fatal mistake 

30 of assuming that to declare certain privileges the right of the 
citizen was equivalent to placing them in his possession. In 
practical operation, however, it was soon found that the sacred 
right of insurrection was too unwieldy a weapon to be wielded 
by a single arm. " All the virtues " proved but indifferent 



COCKRAN 283 

guardians for a constitution assailed by all the passions. A 
mob thirsting for the blood of a victim did not pause to read 
the measure of his rights on tablets, however legibly inscribed 
or conspicuously posted. The legislator menaced by an infu- 
riated populace did not hesitate to seek his own security in 5 
the sacrifice of the lives of thousands without regard to " the 
object of his problem." The Constitution written with so much 
care, acclaimed with so much enthusiasm, adopted with so 
much hope, was suspended even before it went into opera- 
tion. And when on the trial of Danton a decree was passed 10 
authorizing juries to declare themselves satisfied of the guilt of 
persons accused, at any stage of the proceedings against them, 
the last barrier for the protection of the citizen was swept 
away. Frenzied patriots and plotting demagogues combined 
to produce a wild reign of terror — a saturnalia of assassination. 15 
Violence became synonymous with patriotism ; to be accused 
was to be condemned ; to refuse participation in murder was 
to become its victim; the guillotine became the altar of 
popular sovereignty, exacting human sacrifices in ghastly 
abundance. The blood of the best and of the w^orst ; of the 20 
most patriotic and of the most disaffected ; of the philanthropic 
dreamer and of the brutal cut-throat ; of both sexes, of every 
age, and of all conditions, drenched the soil of France — not 
as the stern ransom of liberty, but as a mad libation to anarchy 
and riot. The Constitution founded to protect the rights of 25 
man perished miserably after violating all of them, and repub- 
lican institutions became discredited throughout Europe for a 
century. 

7. The distinction between our Republic and all others — 
which has made it a bulwark of liberty and order, while they 30 
have generally become engines of oppression and sources of 
confusion — is not in the varied extent of privileges promised 
by them, but in the different means which they provide for 
their enforcement. Our Constitution w^as not committed to 



284 MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION 

the " care of all the virtues," but to the courage, wisdom, and 
patriotism of an independent judiciary. The whole security of 
our political system rests primarily on Article III of the Con- 
stitution, which provides that the judicial power of the United 
5 States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such 
inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and 
establish ; and that the judicial power shall extend to all cases 
in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws of 
the United States and treaties made under their authority ; to 

10 controversies between two or more states, between a state and 
citizens of another state, and between citizens of different 
states. This is the corner stone of our political structure, but 
not the force which secures this government firmly on its 
foundations. The experience of France, and indeed of this 

15 country, shows that constitutional provisions of themselves are 
but mere admonitions, always disregarded in practice unless 
adequate instrumentalities are provided to enforce them. The 
actual character of a constitutional government depends less 
on the words of its constitution than on the interpretation 

20 which they receive. It was not the Constitution as drawn 
up by its framers, but the Constitution as interpreted by 
its judges, which the greatest Englishman of modern times 
described as the most perfect work ever struck off at a given 
time by the mind of man. Marshall found a plan, he placed 

25 it in effective operation ; he found certain declarations in 
favor of individual safety, he made them the panoply of 
individual rights ; he found a written Constitution, he made it 
a constitutional government. 

8. In fixing the credit due to Marshall's judicial career it is 

30 not necessary to belittle the wisdom and foresight of the men 
who wrote the Constitution. No structure can be stronger than 
its foundation. John Marshall could never have raised the 
Supreme Court from the weakness in which he found it to the 
power and majesty in which he left it, if the Constitution had 



COCKRAN 285 

not afforded him an adequate field for the fullest exercise of 
his constructive genius. 

9. It would be superfluous, in this presence, to discuss or 
,even to mention the long series of decisions through which he 
made the promises of freedom embraced in the Constitution 5 
actual possessions of the American people. It is enough to say- 
that during his judicial service of thirty-four years, in deciding 
many controversies arising in every part of the Union, he suc- 
ceeded in establishing four great principles which underlie our 
whole constitutional system and which constitute its main sup- 10 
port : first, the supremacy of the national government over 
the states and all their inhabitants ; second, the supremacy 

of the Constitution over every department of government ; 
third, the absolute freedom of trade and intercourse between 
all the states; fourth, the inviolability of private contracts. 15 

10. It is true that these principles are now regarded as axioms 
of civilized society too obvious to be questioned in a nation 
capable of constitutional government, but the universal respect 
in which they are held is entirely due to the courage, resolution, 
and ability with which Marshall asserted and maintained them. 20 
If no attempt to violate them had ever been made by the 
states or by Congress, no occasion would have arisen for the 
decisions which vindicate them so clearly that no respectable 
authority can now be found to challenge them. It is true, as 
the distinguished chairman of this banquet says, that the suprem- 25 
acy of the Constitution over Congress and the Executive was 
asserted by Judge Paterson in a charge to a jury delivered long 
before Marshall assumed the ermine. It is equally true that at 

a still earlier period — in 1 788 — Alexander Hamilton devoted 
a number of the Federalist — I think it was the seventy-eighth 30 
— to proving that it was the right and duty of the Judiciary to 
set aside a law which contravened the Constitution. Indeed, I 
believe the principle had been asserted in some of the colonies 
before the Revolution, But, Mr. Chairman, there is nothing 



286 MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION 

new under the sun. Marshall did not discover or establish any 
new principle of liberty, nor did this Constitution embrace one, 
but Marshall did devise an effective plan for making declara- 
tions of ancient principles practical features of civil government. 
5 Man can no more invent a new principle than he can invent 
a new force. The limit of human ingenuity is exhausted when 
new devices are found for utilizing forces which are eternal. 
The force which moves the steam engine existed since the begin- 
ning of the world, but it never was available for the use of man 
lo till Watt devised an effective machine. Liberty was always an 
aspiration to cherish, but never till Marshall made this Consti- 
tution effective did liberty become a possession to enjoy. 

11. Marshall brought to the interpretation of the Constitu- 
tion the love of a patriot, the wisdom of a statesman, and the 

15 ardor of a partisan. He had followed the debates of its framers 
in Philadelphia ; he had successfully urged its adoption in the 
Virginia Convention against the eloquence and overshadowing 
authority of Patrick Henry. Every peril which it escaped in 
the progress of its evolution, every criticism of its provisions, 

20 every apprehension expressed of its operations, were signal 
lights warning him of dangers which threatened it and suggest- 
ing possibilities of further development which in after years he 
improved to the utmost. 

12. In the very general disposition to treat the Constitution 
25 as a mere treaty between independent sovereignties, which 

might be disregarded at pleasure by any of them, he discerned 
a danger against which he warned his countrymen from the 
judgment seat almost as soon as he ascended it. From 1804, 
in the case of the United States against Fisher, to the last day 
30 of his service, he never missed an opportunity to assert the 
supremacy of the federal government on all matters com- 
mitted to it by the Constitution as the vital principle of our 
national existence, nor to show by irresistible logic that to ques- 
tion its sovereignty was to plot its destruction. This was the 



COCKRAN 287 

doctrine on which patriots ahvays supported the Union — for 
.which Webster contended in the Senate, for which armies 
battled during four long years, and which was finally affirmed 
on the battlefield when the sword of the Confederacy was sur- 
rendered to the triumphant forces of the Republic. 5 

13. In the opposition expressed in the Philadelphia Con- 
vention to establishing United States courts of inferior jurisdic- 
tion and in the suggestion that the enforcement of the federal 
Constitution and laws should be confided to the state courts, 
he detected a disposition to emasculate the federal Judiciary 10 
by making it a body without limbs, and when occasion arose 

in 1809 he issued that mandamus to Judge Peters which made 
the subordinate courts of the United States the vigorous and 
effective hands of the Constitution — enforcing its provisions in 
every locality, bringing the federal law to the doorway of the 15 
citizen, maintaining the supremacy of the United States in 
every square foot of their territory — without interfering with 
the power of the state to deal with matters concerning itself and 
its own citizens, except to administer its justice according to 
its own laws when they were invoked by a stranger against a 20 
resident. And when in the subsequent case of Hunter's Lessee 
he established the right of the Supreme Court to review any 
proceedings of a state tribunal which involved a question arising 
under the laws or Constitution of the United States, he con- 
verted the state courts from possible obstacles to federal author- 25 
ity into additional agencies for the enforcement of federal laws. 

14. In the proposal so strongly urged in the Philadelphia 
Convention to empower the judges of the Supreme Court to 
advise the legislative and the executive departments in the dis- 
charge of their functions he detected an apprehension that under 30 
a republican form of government parliamentary bodies and 
executive officers might be carried to excesses by violent gusts 

of popular opinion, and in the case of Marbury against Madison 
he quieted that distrust forever by assuming for the Judiciary 



288 MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION 

the right and the duty to enforce the Constitution against any 
attempt to invade it by any other department, or by all the other 
departments of government combined, on the complaint of any 
citizen whose rights might be imperiled by the encroachment. 
5 15. Freedom of trade between the states was secured when 
in Gibbons against Ogden the jurisdiction of the federal gov- 
ernment was established over the navigable waters of the United 
States, whether inland rivers or harbors of the sea, and when in 
the subsequent case of Brown against the State of Maryland — 

10 which might be called the original " original package case " — it 
was held that the state had no power to impose any tax or duty 
by way of license or other pretext upon the products of other 
states seeking access to its markets. To these and the subse- 
quent decisions constituting the body of law governing inter- 

15 state commerce we are indebted for the profound peace which 
reigns between the states; for if one state had been allowed 
to impose discriminations in matters of trade or communication 
against the citizens of another, each imposition would have been 
followed by reprisals leading in turn to fresh retaliatory meas- 

20 ures, until a state of commercial war would have been the nor- 
mal relation between all the states. It is the history of human- 
ity that a conflict of interests is usually followed by a conflict 
of arms. 

16. The Dartmouth College case, which established the invio- 

25 lability of contracts, was an industrial bill of rights to the people 
of this country-. It has proved the very fountain of the prosper- 
ity which they have achieved and of the greater prosperity which 
awaits them. While the whole industrial activity of man depends 
upon his belief in the fulfillment of contracts, there is often a 

30 strong tendency in legislatures and governments to repudiate 
debts or obstruct their collection. When, therefore, Marshall 
placed the obligation of contracts beyond the power of any 
state to disturb, he made the industry of this country the most 
prosperous in the world by making its fruits the most secure. 



COCKRAN 289 

17. If I were to summarize Marshall's service I should say 
that on the solid foundation of the Constitution he made power, 
justice, peace, and prosperity the four great pillars of our gov- 
ernmental system : power by establishing the sovereignty of 
the general government over the states, thus making it the 5 
strongest nation in the world ; justice by establishing the domin- 
ion of the Constitution over all the departments of the gov- 
ernment ; peace by establishing freedom of intercourse between 
all the states; prosperity by establishing the inviolability of pri- 
vate contracts. The decisions of Marshall's successors, without 10 
disturbing these pillars, have strengthened them, and the stately 
fabric of government which they support. 

18. The stability of the Union has been secured as much by 
forbearance in refusing to exercise powers not properly belong- 
ing to it as by firmness in enforcing those essential to its ex- 15 
istence. The inviolability of contracts has not been allowed 

to pervert franchises granted for the public convenience into 
monopolies beyond the power of the state to control. The right 
of every citizen to trade, move, or labor everywhere throughout 
the whole territory of the United States on equal terms with all 20 
others has not been allowed to interfere with the right of each 
state to protect health, order, and morals within its -limits, the 
only restriction on its police power being the requirement that 
every exercise of it must apply equally to citizen and stranger 
under its jurisdiction. 25 

19. It is perhaps the most extraordinary feature of our polit- 
ical system, as it is the most impressive tribute to Marshall's 
genius, that the power of the Judiciary — now unquestioned — to 
fix the limits of its own authority and the authority of all other 
departments rests not upon any specific provision of the Con- 30 
stitution, but on a principle of construction first announced 
authoritatively in the case of Marbury against Madison. The 
approval bestowed on that momentous decision and on every 
subsequent amplification of its doctrine has been so universal 



290 MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION 

that the judicial department has been encouraged to extend the 
buckler of its authority over an ever-widening field, until it has 
become the dominant force in our national life — the one ele- 
ment which through all our existence has steadily grown in power 

5 and beneficence. Never has the Supreme Court exercised its 
supreme power of setting aside a law of Congress or of a state 
that the people did not sustain its course with substantial una- 
nimity. With the exception of the Eleventh Amendment, there 
is not in the history of the United States, or of any state, a single 

lo instance in which the people consented to a constitutional pro- 
vision limiting the power of the Judiciary, while the tendency 
everywhere has always been to enlarge it. While this respect 
for the Judiciary remains a conspicuous feature of our national 
life, no peril to our institutions can ever become serious. Where 

15 parliament is supreme, corruption of legislative bodies under- 
mines the life of the whole State, for when the omnipotent 
source of power itself becomes corrupt, all the streams which 
flow from it must be tainted, and laws springing from greed 
are sure to be administered for the plunder and oppression of 

20 the people. Under such conditions industry languishes, pros- 
perity withers, civiHzation itself is imperiled. But under our 
democratic government the right of the citizen to come and go 
as he pleases, the right to enjoy his property, to exchange the 
product of his industry against the commodities produced by 

25 others, depend not upon the honesty of the legislature, or the 
loyalty of the executive, but upon the virtue and independence 
of the Judiciary. If corruption exists in this country, it can only 
affect the bestowal of favors by the government ; it cannot 
endanger the life, liberty, or property of a single individual. 

30 There may be partiality — corruption, if you will — in the 
bestowal of public franchises, of public offices, and of public con- 
tracts, but while there is none in the administration of justice, 
while the courts remain true to the example and precepts of 
Marshall, all the essential rights of the citizen are as secure as 



COCKRAN 



291 



the earth under his feet, they can no more be invaded than the 
stars in heaven can be blotted from his gaze. 

20. One hundred years after the establishment of our Con- 
stitution, what purpose expressed in its preamble remains to 
be accomphshed — what hope cherished by its framers is un- 5 
fulfilled? I know of none. Look around you and tell me if 
this be an idle boast. Has not the Union been made perfect 
through the wisdom of the great magistrate who showed its 
necessity and the blood of the heroes who cemented it? Is not 
justice firmly established by the unquestioned dominion of the 10 
Constitution? Is not domestic tranquillity absolutely insured 
since perfect freedom of intercourse and trade removes all 
provocation to hostile acts or feelings between the states? Is 
not the common defense abundantly provided for by the over- 
whelming strength of a populous nation whose every inhabit- 15 
ant would die for the integrity of its soil and the glory of its 
flag? Has not the general welfare been promoted beyond the 
wildest hopes of the fathers since the security of property 
encourages industry to wring measureless abundance from a 
fruitful soil? Are not the blessings of liberty secured for our- 20 
selves and our posterity beyond fear of invasion or danger of 
abridgment by the effective protection which the Judiciary casts 
over the essential rights of every citizen? 

21. Looking back over the history of this country I cannot 
entertain a doubt of its security or of its future. While the 25 
judicial department remains the depository of our rights and 
liberties, — the ark of our political covenant, — while the courts 
remain the inviolable sanctuary of justice, the Constitution 
will remain the secure foundation of the principles established 
by Marshall, and this government will continue to be the tem- 30 
pie of freedom, the bulwark of order, the light of progress, the 
supreme monument of what man has achieved, the inspiring 
promise of the boundless future that awaits him. 



INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

Carl Schurz 

An address delivered before the American Conference 
ON International Arbitration held in Washington, Dis- 
trict OF Columbia, April 22, 1896. 

INTRODUCTION 

Carl Schurz, statesman, journalist, orator, and publicist, was 
born at Liblar, Prussia, March 2, 1829. While a student at the 
University of Bonn, in 1849, ^^ participated in a student insurrec- 
tion against governmental absolutism and for German unification, 
and took part in the defense of Rastatt, a fortified town of Baden, 
then occupied by the Revolutionary party. On the surrender of 
that fortress he was arrested and imprisoned, but escaped to 
Switzerland. In 1852 he came to America, resided three years in 
Philadelphia, and then settled in Watertown, Wisconsin. In 1859 
he removed to Milwaukee, where he practiced law. He soon became 
one of the leaders of the newly founded Republican party, and was 
a prominent speaker for Lincoln during the presidential campaign 
of i860. In 1 86 1 President Lincoln appointed him Minister to 
Spain. Resigning that ofiice to enter the Union army, he served 
at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and other battles, 
leaving the army with rank of major general. After the war he 
settled at St. Louis, and from 1869 to 1875 he represented Mis- 
souri in the United States Senate, beginning there the work for 
the reform of the civil service which did so much to force the Liberal 
Republican movement of 1872 and the even more decisive "mug- 
wump " revolt of 1884. Mr. Schurz removed to New York City in 
1875. From 1877 to 1881 he was Secretary of the Interior, retiring 
to devote himself to journalism and literature. In 1 881-1883 he 
edited the New York Evening Post, and thereafter was a writer 
and speaker on various public questions. In 1 892, on the death of 

293 



294 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

George William Curtis, he was made president of the National 
Civil Service Reform Association. On March 2, 1899, his seven- 
tieth birthday was celebrated at Delmonico's, New York City, by a 
complimentary dinner which was attended by many of the nation's 
most prominent men. He died May 14, 1906, 

For fifty years Mr. Schurz wielded an influence over public 
opinion in this country, especially among German-American citi- 
zens, that it would be hard to overestimate. And this in spite of 
bitter political opposition. In politics he was always a con- 
servative independent, opposing any tendency that seemingly 
threatened the cause of individual liberty which he espoused 
in his native country. Though usually favoring the principles 
and policies of the Republican party, his political influence and 
appointments were won by sheer force of ability and statesman- 
ship. His attitude on political questions was that of the states- 
man rather than that of the mere politician. He never spoke 
solely for any party, and never had any party behind him. He 
supported Horace Greeley for President in 1872, and as one of 
the leaders of the "mugwump" movement in 1884 he helped 
indirectly to elect President Cleveland. As United States Senator 
he opposed many of the principal measures of Grant's adminis- 
tration. Against the bitter partisanry of the Republican majority, 
in dealing with the problems of Reconstruction, he stood for a 
just and generous policy. In 1872 he delivered a notable speech 
in the' Senate, favoring a policy of general amnesty toward the 
South and urging the removal of all political disabilities imposed 
by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Consti- 
tution. For cogency of reasoning, keen insight into the motives 
and springs of human action, and persuasive appeal to the nobler 
sentiments of his hearers, this speech stands out in marked contrast 
to much of the coarse and brutal haranguing of that period. In 
concluding this speech, he said: 

" I would not have the past forgotten, but I would have its his- 
tory completed and crowned by an act most worthy of a great, 
noble, and wise people. ... I do not, indeed, indulge in the delu- 
sion that this act alone will remedy all the evils which we now 
deplore. No, it will not ; but it will be a powerful appeal to the 
very best instincts and impulses of human nature ; it will, like a 
warm ray of sunshine in springtime, quicken and call to light the 
germs of good intention wherever they exist; it will give new 



SCHURZ 295 

courage, confidence, and inspiration to .the well-disposed ; it will 
weaken the power of the mischievous by stripping off their pretexts 
and exposing in their nakedness the wicked designs they still may 
cherish ; it will light anew the beneficent glow of fraternal feeling 
and of national spirit ; for, Sir, your good sense as well as your 
heart must tell you that when this is truly a people of citizens equal 
in their political rights, it will then be easier to make it also a people 
of brothers." 

At the celebration of Mr. Schurz's seventieth birthday, previously 
mentioned. Honorable Moorfield Storey, of Boston, said : 

" Mr. Schurz brought into the Senate a fresh moral force, and 
as we read his speeches we cannot fail to recognize with fresh 
admiration the unvarying wisdom, the far-seeing statesmanship, 
the unflinching courage, the high purpose, with which he met 
them all. The singular clearness of statement, which has never 
deserted him, his wonderful command of English, the unfailing 
calmness and dignity with which he encountered and returned the 
attacks of his opponents, made him the first debater in the Senate, 
and an orator second to none. But he never descended to any- 
thing unworthy, and you may search his speeches in vain for any 
appeal to low motive, for any trace of thought for his personal 
fortunes." 

Mr. Schurz may properly be considered as one of the foremost 
American orators. As a speaker he was noted for his plainness and 
directness. Except a slight accent in delivery, there was nothing 
about his speaking for which he had to claim indulgence. His style 
is unornamented and businesslike ; yet in spite of their lack of the 
poetical quality his speeches have done much to make American 
history. " But," says Reverend Richard S. Storrs in one of his 
speeches, " no discourse that he can utter, however brilliant in 
rhetoric ; no analysis, however lucid ; no clear and comprehensive 
sweep of his thought, though expressed in words which ring in our 
ears and live in our memories, can so fully and fittingly illustrate 
to us the progress of liberal ideas as does the man himself, in his 
character and career — an Old-World citizen of the American 
Republic whose marvelous mastery of our tough English tongue is 
still surpassed by his more marvelous mastery over the judgments 
and the hearts of those who hear him use it." 

The following speech was selected by Mr. Schurz himself as 
representing a subject of present interest, and as one of the Best 



296 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

of his later addresses. It was delivered before a body of distin- 
guished men, and the invitation extended Mr. Schurz to address 
them was a deserved recognition of the speaker's authority on the 
question of international arbitration. 

1. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Conference : I 
have been honored with the request that I should address you 
on the desirableness of arbitration as a method of settling 
international disputes. To show that arbitration is preferable 

5 to war should be, among civilized people, as superfluous as to 
show that to refer disputes between individuals or associations 
to courts of justice is better than to r6fer them to single com- 
bat or to street fights, — in one word, that the ways of civiliza- 
tion are preferable to those of barbarism. Neither is there any 

10 doubt as to the practicability of international arbitration. What 
seemed an ideahstic dream in Hugo Grotius's time, is now 
largely an established practice : no longer an uncertain experi- 
ment, but an acknowledged success. In this century not less 
than eighty controversies between civilized powers have been 

15 composed by arbitration. And more than that. Every interna- 
tional dispute settled by arbitration has stayed settled, while dur- 
ing the same period some of the results of great wars have not 
stayed settled, and others are unceasingly drawn in question, 
being subject to the shifting preponderance of power. And 

20 such wars have cost rivers of blood, countless treasure, and 
immeasurable misery, while arbitration has cost comparatively 
nothing. Thus history teaches the indisputable lesson that 
arbitration is not only the most human and economical method 
of settling international differences, but also the most, if not 

25 the only, certain method to furnish enduring results. 

2 . As to the part war has played, and may still have to play, 
in the history of mankind, I do not judge as a blind sentimen- 
talist. I readily admit that, by the side of horrible devasta- 
tions and barbarous cruelty, great and beneficent things, have 

• 30 been accomplished by means of war, in forming nations and in 



SCHURZ 297 

spreading and establishing the rule or influence of the capable 
and progressive. I will not inquire how much of this work still 
remains to be done, and what place war may have in it. But 
surely, among the civilized nations of to-day — and these we 
are considering — the existing conditions of intercourse largely 5 
preclude war as an agency for salutary objects. The steamship, 
the railroad, the telegraph, the postal union, and other inter- 
national arrangements facilitating transportation and the circu- 
lation of intelligence have broken down many of the barriers 
which formerly enabled nations to lead separate lives, and have 10 
made them, in those things which constitute the agencies of 
well-being and of progressive civilization, in a very high degree 
dependent upon each other. And this development of common 
life interests and mutual furtherance, mental as well as material, 
still goes on in continuous growth. Thus a war between civi- 15 
lized nations means now a rupture of arteries of common life- 
blood, a stoppage of the agencies of common well-being and 
advancement, a waste of energies serviceable to common inter- 
ests, — in one word, a general disaster, infinitely more serious 
than in times gone by ; and it is, consequently, now an infi- 20 
nitely more heinous crime against humanity, unless not only the 
ends it is to serve fully justify the sacrifices it entails, but unless 
also all expedients suggested by the genius of peace have been 
exhausted to avert the armed conflict. 

3. Of those pacific expedients, when ordinary diplomatic 25 
negotiation does not avail, arbitration has proved itself most 
effective. And it is the object of the movement in which we 
are engaged, to make the resort to arbitration, in case of inter- 
national difliculty, still more easy, more regular, more normal, 
more habitual, and thereby to render the resort to war more 30 
unnatural and more difficult than heretofore. 

4. In this movement the Republic of the United States is 
the natural leader, and I can conceive for it no nobler or more 
beneficent mission. The naturalness of this leadership is owing 



298 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

to its peculiar position among the nations of the earth. Look 
at the powers of the Old World, how each of them is uneasily 
watching the other ; how conflicting interests or ambitions are 
constantly exciting new anxieties ; how they are all armed to 
5 the teeth, and nervously increasing their armaments, lest a 
hostile neighbor overmatch |;hem ; how they are piling expense 
upon expense and tax upon tax to augment their instruments 
of destruction ; how, as has been said, every workingman 
toiling for his daily bread has to carry a full-armed soldier 

10 or sailor on his back; and how, in spite of those bristling 
armaments, their sleep is unceasingly troubled by dreams of 
interest threatened, of marches stolen upon them, of com- 
binations hatched against them, and of the danger of some 
accident breaking the precarious peace and setting those 

15 gigantic and exhausting preparations in motion for the work 
of ravage and ruin. 

5. And then look at this Republic, stronger than any nation 
in Europe in the number, intelligence, vigor, and patriotism 
of its people, and in the unparalleled abundance of its barely 

20 broached resources ; resting with full security in its magnificent 
domain ; standing safely aloof from the feuds of the Old World ; 
substantially unassailable in its great continental stronghold ; 
no dangerous neighbors threatening its borders ; no outlying 
and exposed possessions to make it anxious ; the only great 

25 power in the world seeing no need of keeping up vast standing 
armaments on land or sea to maintain its peace or to protect 
its integrity; its free institutions making its people the sole 
master of its destinies ; and its best political traditions pointing 
to a general policy of peace and good will among men. What 

30 nation is there better fitted to be the champion of this cause 
of peace" and good will than this, so strong although unarmed, 
and so entirely exempt from any imputation of the motive of 
fear or of selfish advantage ? Truly, this Republic with its power 
and its opportunities is the pet of destiny. 



SCHURZ 299 

6. As an American citizen I cannot contemplate this noble 
peace mission of my country without a thrill of pride. And I 
must confess, it touches me like an attack upon the dignity of 
this Republic when I hear Americans repudiate that peace mis- 
sion upon the ground of supposed interests of the United States, 5 
requiring for their protection or furtherance preparation for 
warlike action and the incitement of a fighting spirit among 
our people. To judge from the utterances of some men having 
the public ear, we are constantly threatened by the evil designs 

of rival or secretly hostile powers that are eagerly watching 10 
every chance to humiliate our self-esteem, to insult our flag, to 
balk our policies, to harass our commerce, and even to threaten 
our independence, and putting us in imminent danger of dis- 
comfiture of all sorts, unless we stand with sword in hand in 
sleepless watch, and cover the seas with war ships, and picket 15 
the islands of every ocean with garrisoned outposts, and sur- 
round ourselves far and near with impregnable fortresses. What 
a poor idea those indulging in such talk have of the true posi- 
tion of their country among the nations of the world ! 

7. A little calm reflection will convince every unprejudiced 20 
mind that there is not a single power, nor even an imaginable 
combination of powers, on the face of the globe that can wish 

— I might almost say that can afford — a serious quarrel with 
the United States. There are very simple reasons for this. 
War in our days is not a mere matter of military skill, nor even 25 

— as it would certainly not be in our case — a mere matter 
of preparation for the first onset. It is a matter of material 
resources, of reserves, of staying power. Now, considering that 
in all these respects our means are substantially inexhaustible, 
and that the patriotic spirit and the extraordinary ingenuity of 30 
our people would greatly aid their development in the progress 

of a conflict; considering that, however grievous might -be the 
injuries which a strong hostile navy could inflict upon us at 
the beginning of a war, it could not touch a vital point, as on 



300 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

land we would be immensely superior to any army that could 
be brought upon our shores ; considering that thus a war with 
the United States, as a test of endurance, would, so far as our 
staying power is concerned, be a war of indefinite duration; 
5 considering all these things, I am justified in saying that no 
European power can engage in such a conflict with us, without 
presenting to its rivals in the Old World the most tempting 
opportunity for hostile action. And no European power will 
do this, unless forced by extreme necessity. For the same 

lo reason, no European power will, even if it were so inclined, 
insist upon doing anything injurious to bur interests that might 
lead to a war with the United States. We may therefore depend 
upon it with absolute assurance that, whether we are armed or 
not, no European power will seek a quarrel with us ; that, on 

1 5 the contrary, they will avoid such a quarrel with the utmost 
care ; that we cannot have a war with any of them, unless we 
wantonly and persistently seek such a war ; and that they will 
respect our rights and comply with our demands, if just and 
proper, in the way of friendly agreement. 

2o 8. If anybody doubts this, let him look at a recent occur- 
rence. The alarmists about the hostihty to us of foreign 
powers usually have Great Britain in their minds. I am very 
sure President Cleveland, when he wrote his Venezuela mes- 
sage, did not mean to provoke a war with Great Britain. But 

25 the language of that message might have been construed as 
such a provocation, by anybody inclined to do so. Had Great 
Britain wished a quarrel with us, here was a tempting oppor- 
tunity. Everybody knew that we had but a small navy, an 
insignificant standing army, and no coast defenses ; and in 

30 fact we were entirely unprepared for a conflict. The public 
opinion of Europe, too, was against us. What did the British 
government do? It did not avail itself of that opportunity. 
It did not resent the language of that message. On the con- 
trary, the Queen's speech from the throne gracefully turned 



SCHURZ 301 

that message into an " expression of willingness " on the part 
of the United States to cooperate with Great Britain in the 
adjustment of the Venezuela boundary dispute. 

9. It has been said that the conciliatory mildness of this 
turn was owing to the impression produced in England by the 5 
German Emperor's congratulatory dispatch to the President 

of the South African Republic. If the two things were so 
connected, it would prove what I have said, that even the 
strongest European government will be deterred from a quarrel 
with the United States by the opportunities which such a 10 
quarrel would open to its rivals. If the two things were not 
so connected, it would prove that even the strongest European 
power will under any circumstances go to very great lengths 
in the way of conciliation, to remain on friendly terms with 
this Republic. 15 

10. In the face of these indisputable facts, we hear the 
hysterical cries of the alarmists, who scent behind every rock 
or bush a foreign foe standing with dagger in hand ready to 
spring upon us and to rob us of our valuables if not to kill us 
outright, or at least making faces at us or insulting the stars 20 
and stripes. Is not this constant and eager looking for danger 

or insult where neither exists, very like that melancholy form 
of insanity called jpersecution mania, which is so extremely 
distressing to the sufferers and their friends? We may heartily 
commiserate the unfortunate victims of so dreadful an afflic- 25 
tion ; but surely the American people should not take such 
morbid hallucinations as a reason for giving up that inesti- 
mable blessing of not being burdened with large armaments, 
and for embarking upon a policy of warhke preparation and 
bellicose bluster. 30 

11. It is a little less absurd in sound, but not in sense, when 
people say that instead of trusting in our position as the great 
peace power, we must at least have plenty of war ships to 
" show our flag " everywhere, and to impress foreign nations 



302 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

with our strength, to the end of protecting and developing our 
maritime commerce. Granting that we should have a sufficient 
naval force for our share of police work on the seas, would a 
large armament be required on account of our maritime trade ? 
5 Let us see. Fifty years ago, as the official statistics of " the 
value of foreign trade carried in American and foreign vessels " 
show, nearly eighty-two per cent of that trade was carried on 
in American vessels. Between 1847 ^^^ 1861 the percentage 
fell to sixty-five. Then the Civil War came, at the close of 

10 which American bottoms carried only twenty-eight per cent 
of that trade ; and now we carry less than twelve per cent. 
During the period when this maritime trade rose to its highest 
development, we had no naval force to be in any degree com- 
pared with those of the great European powers. Nor did we 

15 need any for the protection of our maritime commerce, for 
no foreign power molested that commerce. In fact, since the 
War of 1 81 2, it has not been molested by anybody so as to 
require armed protection, except during the Civil War by 
Confederate cruisers. The harassment ceased again when the 

20 Civil War ended, but our merchant shipping, on the high seas 
continued to decline. 

12. That decline was evidently not owing to the superiority 
of other nations in naval armament. It was coincident with 
the development of ocean transportation by iron steamships 

25 instead of wooden sailing ships. The wooden sailing ships we 
had in plenty, but of iron steamships we have only a few. It 
appears, therefore, that whatever we may need a large war 
fleet for, it is certainly not for the development of our mari- 
time commerce. To raise that commerce to its old superiority 

30 again, we want no more war ships, but more merchant vessels. 
To obtain these, we need a policy enabling American capital 
and enterprise to compete in that business with foreign nations. 
And to make such a policy fruitful, we need, above all things, 
peace. And we shall have that peace so long as we abstain 



SCHURZ 303 

from driving some foreign power, against its own inclination, 
into a war with the United States. 

13. Can there be any motive other than the absurd ones 
mentioned to induce us to provoke such a war ? I have heard 

it said that a war might be desirable to enliven business again. 5 
Would not that be as wise and moral as a proposition to burn 
down our cities for the purpose of giving the masons and car- 
penters something to do? Nay, we are even told that there 
are persons who would have a foreign war on any pretext, no 
matter with whom, to the end of bringing on a certain change 10 
in our monetary policy. But the thought of plotting in cold 
blood to break the peace of the country, and to send thou- 
sands of our youths to slaughter, and to desolate thousands of 
American homes, for an object of internal policy, whatever it 
may be, is so abominable, so ghastly, so appalhng, that I dis- 15 
miss it as impossible of belief. 

14. I know, however, from personal experience, of some 
otherwise honorable and sensible men who wish for a war on 
sentimental — aye, on high moral grounds. One of them, 
whom I much esteem, confessed to me that he longed for a war, 20 
if not with England, then with Spain or some other power, as 
he said, " to lift the American people out of their materiaHsm 
and to awaken once more that heroic spirit which moved 
young Gushing to risk his life in blowing up the Confederate 
steamer Albemarle^ This, when I heard it, fairly took my 25 
breath away. And yet, we must admit, such fanatical confusion 

of ideas is not without charm to some of our high-spirited 
young men. But what a mocking delusion it is ! To lift a 
people out of materialism by war ! Has not war always excited 
the spirit of~reckless and unscrupulous speculation, not only 30 
while it was going on, but also afterwards, by the economic 
disorders accompanying and outlasting it? Has it not always 
stimulated the rapid and often dishonest accumulation of 
riches on one side, while spreading and intensifying want and 



304 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

misery on the other? Has it not thus always had a tendency 
to plunge a people still deeper into materialism? Has not 
every great war left a dark streak of demoralization behind? 
Has it not thus always proved dangerous to the purity of 
5 republican governments? Is not this our own experience? 
And as to awakening the heroic spirit — does it not, while stir- 
ring noble impulses in some, excite the base passions in others? 
And do not the young Cushings among us find opportunities 
for heroism in the life of peace, too? Would it be wise, in the 

lo economy of the universe, to bring on a war, with its bloodshed 
and devastation, its distress and mourning, merely for the 
purpose of accommodating our young braves with chances for 
blowing up ships? The old Roman poet tells us that it is 
sweet and glorious to die for one's country. It is noble, indeed. 

15 But to die on the battlefield is not the highest achievement 
of heroism. To live for a good cause honestly, earnestly, un- 
selfishly, laboriously, is at least as noble and heroic as to die 
for it, and usually far more difficult. 

15. I have seen war. I have seen it with its glories and 

20 horrors; with its noble emotions and its bestialities; with its 
exaltations and triumphs, and its unspeakable miseries and 
baneful corruptions; and heard flippant talk of war, as if it 
were only a holiday pastime or a mere athletic sport. We are 
often told that there are things worse than war. Yes, but not 

25 many. He deserves the curse of mankind who, in the exercise 
of power, forgets that war should be only the very last resort, 
even in contending for a just and beneficent end, after all 
the resources of peaceful methods are thoroughly exhausted. 
As an American, proud of his country and anxious that this 

30 Republic should prove itself equal to the most glorious of its 
opportunities, I cannot but denounce as a wretched fatuity 
that so-called patriotism which will not remember that we are 
the envy of the whole world for the priceless privilege of being 
exempt from the oppressive burden of warlike preparations; 



SCHURZ 305 

which, when it sees other nations groaning under that load, 
tauntingly asks, "Why do you not disarm?" and then insists 
that the American people too shall put the incubus of a heavy 
armament on their backs ; and which would drag this Repub- 
lic down from its high degree of the championship of peace 5 
among nations, and degrade it to the vulgar level of the bully 
ready and eager for a fight. 

16. We hear much of the necessity of an elaborate sys- 
tem of coast fortifications to protect our seajDorts from assault. 
How far such system may be desirable, I will not here discuss. 10 
But I am confident our strongest, most effective, most trust- 
worthy, and infinitely the cheapest coast defense will consist 

in " Fort Justice," '' Fort Good Sense," " Fort Self-respect," 
" Fort Good Will," and if international differences really do 
arise, " Fort Arbitration." ' 15 

17. Let no one accuse me of resorting to the claptrap of 
the stump speech in discussing this grave subject. I mean 
exactly what I say, and am solemnly in earnest. This Republic 
can have no other armament so effective as the weapons of 
peace. Its security, its influence, its happiness, and its glory 20 
will be the greater, the less it thinks of war. Its moral 
authority wall be far more potent than its intercourse with 
foreign nations, be best maintained by that justice which is the 
duty of all ; by that generous regard not only for the rights, 
but also the self-respect of others, which is the distinguishing 25 
mark of the true gentleman ; and by that patient forbearance 
which is the most gracious virtue of the strong. 

18. For all these reasons, it appears to me this RepubHc 
is the natural champion of the great peace measure, for the 
furtherance of which we are met. The permanent establish- 30 
ment of a general court of arbitration to be composed of 
representative jurists of the principal states, and to take cog- 
nizance of all international disputes that cannot be settled by 
ordinary diplomatic negotiation, is no doubt the ideal to be 



306 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

aimed at. If this cannot be reached at once, the conclusion 
of an arbitration treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain may be regarded as a great step in that direction. 
19. I say this, not as a so-called Anglomaniac, bowing 
5 down before everything English. While I admire the magnifi- 
cent qualities and achievements of that great nation, I am not 
blind to its faults. I suppose Englishmen candidly expressing 
their sentiments speak in a similar strain of us. But I believe 
that an arbitration agreement between just these two countries 

10 would not only be of immense importance to themselves, but 
also serve as an example to invite imitation in wider circles. 
In this respect, I do not think that the so-called blood relation- 
ship of the two nations, which would make such an arbitration 
agreement between them appear more natural, furnishes the 

15 strongest reason for it. It is indeed true that the ties binding the 
two peoples sentimentally together would give to a war between 
them an especially wicked and heinous aspect. But were their 
arbitration agreement placed mainly on this ground, it would 
lose much of its important significance for the world at large. 

20 20. In truth, however, the common ancestry, the common 
origin of institutions and laws, the common traditions, the 
common literature, and so on, have not prevented conflicts 
between the Americans and the English before, and they 
would not alone be sufficient to prevent them in the future. 

25 Such conflicts may, indeed, be regarded as family feuds ; but 
family feuds are apt to be the bitterest of all. In point of fact, 
there is by no means such a community or accord of inter- 
est or of feeling between the two nations as to preclude hot 
rivalries and jealousies on many fields which might now and 

30 then bring forth an exciting clash. We hear it said even now, 
in this country, that Great Britain is not the power with whom 
to have a permanent peace arrangement, because she is so 
high-handed in her dealings with other nations. I should not 
wonder if the same . thing were said in England about the 



SCHURZ 307 

United States. This, of course, is not an argument against an 
arbitration agreement, but rather for it. Such an arrangement 
between nations of such temper is especially called for, to 
prevent that temper from running away with calm reason. 
Between perfect angels from heaven an arbitration treaty 5 
would be superfluous. 

21. The institution of a regulated and permanent system of 
arbitration between the United States and Great Britain would, 
therefore, not be a mere sentimental cooing between loving 
cousins, nor a mere stage show gotten up for the amusement 10 
of the public, but a very serious contrivance intended for very 
serious business. It will set to mankind the example of two 
very great nations, the greatest rivals in the world, neither of 
them a mere theorist or sentimental dreamer, both intensely 
practical, self-willed, and hard-headed, deliberately agreeing 15 
to abstain from the barbarous ways of bygone times in adjust- 
ing the questions of conflicting interest or ambition that may 
arise between them, and to resort, instead, in all cases of 
difficulty to the peaceable and civilized methods suggested by 
the enlightenment, the moral sense, and the human spirit of 20 
our age. If these two nations prove that this can be done, 
will not the conclusion gradually force itself upon other civi- 
lized nations that, by others too, it ought to be done, and 
finally that it must be done? This is the service to be ren- 
dered, not only to ourselves, but to mankind. 25 

22. While the practicability of international arbitration, by 
tribunals established in each case, has been triumphantly 
proved, there is some difference of opinion as to whether a 
permanent tribunal is possible, whether it can be so organized 

as to be fit for the adjustment of all disputes that might come 30 
before it ; and whether there would be any power behind 
it to enforce its adjudications, in case one party or the 
other refused to comply. Such doubts should not disturb our 
purpose. Similar doubts had to be overcome at every step of 



308 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

the progress from the ancient wager of battle to the present 
organization of courts of justice. I am sanguine enough to 
believe that, as soon as the two governments have once 
resolved that a fixed system of international arbitration shall 

5 be established between them, the same ingenuity which has 
been exerted in discovering difficulties will then be exerted 
in removing them, and most of them will be found not to 
exist. The end to be reached in good faith determined upon, 
a workable machinery will soon be devised, be it a permanent 

10 arbitration tribunal, or the adoption of an organic rule for the 
appointment of a special tribunal for each case. We may trust 
to experience to develop the best system. 

23. Neither am I troubled by the objection that there are 
some international disputes which, in their very nature, cannot 

15 be submitted to arbitration, especially those involving ques- 
tions of national honor. When the habit of such submission is 
once well established, it will doubtless be found that most of 
the questions now thought unfit for it are entirely capable of 
composition by methods of reason and equity. And as to so- 

20 called questions of honor, it is time for modern civilization to 
leave behind it those mediaeval notions, according to which 
personal honor found its best protection in the dueling pistol, 
and national honor could be vindicated only by slaughter and 
devastation. Moreover, was not the great Alabama case, which 

25 involved points very closely akin to questions of honor, settled 
by international arbitration, and does not this magnificent 
achievement form one of the most glorious pages of the com- 
mon history of America and England ? Truly, the two nations 
that accomplished this need not be afraid of unadjustable 

30 questions of honor in the future. 

24. Indeed, there will be no recognized power behind a 
court of arbitration, like an international sheriff or other 
executionary force, to compel the acceptance of its decisions 
by an unwilling party. In this extreme case there would be, 



SCHURZ 309 

as the worst possible result, what there would have been with- 
out arbitration — war ! But in how many of the fourscore 
cases of international arbitration we have witnessed in this 
century, has such an enforcing power been needed ? In not a 
single one. In every instance the same spirit which moved 5 
the contending parties to accept arbitration moved them also 
to accept the verdict. Why, then, borrow trouble where 
experience has shown that there is no danger of mischief? 
The most trustworthy compelling power will always be the 
sense of honor of the parties concerned, and their respect for 10 
the enlightened judgment of civilized mankind which will 
watch the proceedings. We may therefore confidently expect 
that a permanent system of arbitration will prove as feasible as 
it is desirable. Nor is there any reason to doubt that its general 
purpose is intelligently and warmly favored by the best public 15 
sentiment both in England and in the United States. The 
memorial of two hundred and thirty- three members of the Brit- 
ish House of Commons which, in 1887, was presented to the 
President and the Congress of the United States, expressing the 
wish that all international differences be submitted to arbitra- 20 
tion, was, in 1890, echoed by a unanimous vote of our Congress 
requesting the President to open negotiations, in this sense, 
with all countries with which we had diplomatic relations. 
Again this sentiment broke forth in England as well as here, 
on the occasion of the Venezuela excitement, in demonstra- 25 
tions of the highest respectability. Indeed, the popular desire, 
as well as the argument, seems to be all on one side. I have 
heard of only one objection that makes the slightest pretense 
to statesmanship, and it needs only to be stated to cover 
its supporters with confusion. It is that we are a young and 30 
aspiring people, and that a binding arbitration treaty would 
hamper us in our freedom of action ! 

25. Let the light be turned upon this. What is it that an 
arbitration treaty contemplates? That in all cases of dispute 



3IO INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

between this and a certain other country, there shall be an 
impartial tribunal regularly appointed to decide, upon principles 
of international law, equity, and reason, what this and what 
the other country may be justly entitled to. And this arrange- 
5 ment is to be shunned as hampering our freedom of action ! - 

26. What will you think of a man who tells you that he feels 
himself intolerably hampered in his freedom of action by the 
ten commandments or by the criminal code? What respect 
and confidence can a nation claim for its character that rejects 

10 a trustworthy and well-regulated method of ascertaining and 
establishing right and justice, avowedly to preserve its freedom 
of action? Shame upon those who would have this great 
Republic play so disreputable a part 1 I protest that the Ameri- 
can people are an honorable people. Wherever its interests or 

15 ambitions may lead this great nation, I am sure it will always 
preserve the self-respect which will prompt it to court the 
search light of truth and justice rather than, by skulking on 
dark and devious paths, to seek to evade it. 

27. Therefore, I doubt not that the patriotic citizens assem- 
20 bled here to promote the establishment of a permanent system 

of arbitration between this country and Great Britain may be 
confident of having the warm sympathy of the American peo- 
ple behind them, when they knock at the door of the President 
of the United States, and say to him : " In the name of all 

25 good Americans we commend this cause to your care. If carried 
to a successful issue, it will hold up this Republic to its noblest 
ideals. It will illuminate with fresh luster the close of this 
great century. It will write the name of the American people 
foremost upon the roll of the champions of the world's peace 

30 and of true civilization." 



OPPORTUNITY 

John Lancaster Spalding 

An address delivered at the opening of Spalding Institute, 
Peoria, Illinois, December 6, 1899 

INTRODUCTION 

John Lancaster Spalding, writer, preacher, and orator, a descend- 
ant of an old English Catholic family, was born in Lebanon, Ken- 
tucky, June 2, 1840. He was educated at the Mount St. Mary's 
College, Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the University of Louvain, Bel- 
gium, where he was ordained priest in 1863. In 1865 he entered 
upon his priestly career at the Cathedral of Louisville. In 1872 he 
was selected to write the biography of his distinguished uncle, 
Martin John Spalding, formerly Archbishop of Baltimore, — a 
work which has been accepted as the best biography in Catholic 
literature. 

Father Spalding was consecrated Bishop of Peoria, Illinois, May 
I, 1877, and his work has since been centered in this field. Along 
with the work in his diocese, he has taken a prominent part in 
various educational and social mqvements, and his position as ap 
authority in the latter class of questions was recognized by his 
appointment in 1902 as a member of the President's commission 
to investigate the coal strike. 

He early attracted attention as a pulpit orator. " Priests and 
people flocked to hear the orator who could make men think." Of 
late years he has been in constant demand as a speaker for various 
occasions. A man of strong mentality, he has a happy faculty 
of crystallizing his thought in brilliant expression. In the vol- 
ume commemorative of Bishop Spalding's Silver Jubilee in 1899, 
— the occasion that called forth the address in this volume, — 
one writer says : 

3" 



312 OPPORTUNITY 

" America has no finer type of the cultured Christian gentleman ; 
an uncynical sage, a thinker unafraid, a churchman without cant, 
an unselfish patriot, a large-minded, genuine, reverent man. . . . 
At the beginning of this new century Bishop Spalding stands 
prophet-like apart to remind men of the nobler purposes of living." 

I . How shall I live ? How shall I make the most of my life 
and put it to the best use? How shall I become a man and 
do a man's work? This, and not politics or trade or war or 
pleasure, is the question. The primary consideration is not 
5 how one shall get a living, but how he shall live ; for if he live 
rightly, whatever is needful he shall easily find. Life is oppor- 
tunity, and therefore its whole circumstance may be made to 
serve the purpose of those who are bent on self-improvement, 
on making themselves capable of doing thorough work. Oppor- 

10 tunity is a word which, like so many others that are excellent, 
we get from the Romans. It means near port, close to haven. 
It is a favorable occasion, time, or place for learning or saying 
or doing a thing. It is an invitation to seek safety and refresh- 
ment, an appeal to make escape from what is low and vulgar 

15 and to take refuge in high thoughts and worthy deeds, from 
which flow increase of strength and joy. It is omnipresent. 
What we call evils, as poverty, neglect, and suffering, are, if 
we are wise, opportunities for good. Death itself teaches life's 
value not less than its vanity. It is the background against 

20 which its worth and beauty stand forth in clear relief. Its dark 
form follows us like our shadow, to bid us win the prize while 
yet there is time ; to teach that if we live in what is permanent, 
the destroyer cannot blight what we know and love ; to urge 
us, with a power that belongs to nothing else, to lay the stress 

25 of all our hoping and doing on the things that cannot pass 
away. "Poverty," says Ouida, "is the north wind that lashes 
men into Vikings." " Lowliness is young ambition's ladder." 
What is more pleasant than to read of strong-hearted youths, 
who, in the midst of want and hardships of many kinds, have 



SPALDING 313 

clung to books, feeding, like bees to flowers ? By the light of 
pine logs, in dim-lit garrets, in the fields following the plow, 
in early dawns when others are asleep, they ply their blessed 
task, seeking nourishment for the mind, athirst for truth, 
yearning for full sight of the high worlds of which they have 5 
caught faint glimpses ; happier now, lacking everything save 
faith and a great purpose, than in after years when success 
shall shower on them applause and gold. 

2. Life is good, and opportunities of becoming and doing 
good are always with us. Our house, our table, our tools, our 10 
books, our city, our country, our language, our business, our 
profession, — the people who love us and those who hate, they 
who help and they who oppose, — what is all this but oppor- 
tunity? Wherever we be there is opportunity of turning to 
gold the dust of daily happenings. If snow and storm keep 15 
me at home is not here an invitation to turn to the immortal 
silent ones who never speak unless they are addressed ? If loss 

or pain or wrong befall me, shall they not show me the soul of 
good there is in things evil? Good fortune may serve to per- 
suade us that the essential good is a noble mind and a con- 20 
science without flaw. Success will make plain the things in 
which we fail ; failure shall spur us on to braver hope and 
striving. If I am left alone, yet God and all the heroic 
dead are with me still. If a great city is my dwelling place, 
the superficial life of noise and haste shall teach me how 25 
blessed a thing it is to live within in the company of true 
thoughts and high resolves. 

3. Whatever can help me to think and love, whatever can 
give me strength and patience, whatever can make me humble 
and serviceable, though it be a trifle light as air, is opportunity, 30 
whose whim it is to hide in unconsidered things, in chance 
acquaintance and casual speech, in the falling of an apple, in 
floating weeds, or the accidental explosion in a chemist's mor- 
tar. Wisdom is habited in plainest garb, and she walks modestly. 



314 OPPORTUNITY 

unheeded of the gaping and \<^ondering crowd. She rules over 
the kingdom of Httle things, in which the lowly minded hold 
the places of privilege. Her secrets are revealed to the care- 
ful, the patient, and the humble. They may be learned from the 
5 ant, or the flower that blooms in some hidden spot, or from the 
Hps of husbandmen and housewives. He is wise who finds a 
teacher in every man, an occasion to improve in every happen- 
ing, for whom nothing is useless or in vain. If one whom he 
has trusted prove false, he lays it to the account of his own 

lo heedlessness and resolves to become more observant. If men 
scorn him, he is thankful that he need not scorn himself. If 
they pass him by, it is enough for him that truth and love still 
remain. If he is ^thrown with one who bears himself with ease 
and grace, or talks correctly in pleasantly modulated tones, or 

15 utters what can spring only from a sincere and generous mind, — 
there is opportunity. If he chance to find himself in the com- 
pany of the rude, their vulgarity gives him a higher estimate 
of the worth of breeding and behavior. The happiness and 
good fortune of his fellows add to his own. If they are beauti- 

20 ful or wise or strong, their beauty, wisdom, and strength shall 
in some way help him. The merry voices of children bring 
gladness to his heart ; the songs of birds wake melody there. 
Whoever anywhere, in any age, spoke noble words or performed 
heroic deeds, spoke and wrought for him. For him Moses led 

25 the people forth from bondage ; for him the three hundred 
perished at Thermopylae ; for him Homer sang ; for him De- 
mosthenes denounced the tyrant ; for him Columbus sailed the 
untraveled sea ; for him Galileo gazed on the starry vault ; for 
him the blessed Saviour died. He knows that whatever dimin- 

30 ishes his good will to men, his sympathy with them, even in their 
blindness and waywardness, makes him poorer, and he therefore 
finds means to convert their faults even into opportunities for 
loving them more. The rivalries of business and politics, the 
shock of conflicting aims and interests, the prejudices and 



SPALDING ' 315 

perversities of men, shall not cheat him of his own good by- 
making him less just or kind. He stands with the Eternal for 
righteousness, and will not suffer that fools or criminals divert 
him to lower ends. If we have but the right mind, all things, 
even those that hurt, help us. " That which befits us," says 5 
Emerson, " embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is 
cheerfulness and courage, and the endeavor to realize our 
aspirations. The life of man is the true romance which, when 
it is valiantly conducted, yields the imagination a higher joy 
than any fiction." May we not make the stars and the moun- 10 
tains and the all-enduring earth minister to tranquillity of soul, 
to elevation of mind, and to patient striving? Have not the 
flowers and human eye and the look of heaven when the sun 
first appears or departs, power to show us that God is beautiful 
and good? 15 

4. Since life is great, nay, of inestimable value, no oppor- 
tunity by which it may be improved can be small. Higher 
things remain to be done than have yet been accomplished. 
God and His universe still wait on each individual soul, offer- 
ing opportunity. In the midst of the humble and inevitable 20 
realities of daily life each one must seek out for himself the 
way to better worlds. Our power, our worth will be propor- 
tionate to the industry and perseverance with which we make 
right use of the ever-recurring minor occasions, whether for be- 
coming or for doing good. Opportunity is not wanting — there 25 
is place and means for all — but we lack will, we lack faith, 
hope, and desire, we lack watchfulness, meditation, and earnest 
striving, we lack aim and purpose. Do we imagine that it is 
not possible to lead a high life in a lowly room? That one 
may not be hero, sage, or saint in a factory or a coalpit, at 30 
the handle of the plow or the throttle of the engine? We 
are all in the center of the same world, and whatever hap- 
pens to us is great, if there be greatness in us. The disbelievers 
in opportunity are voluble with excuses. They cannot ; they 



3l6 OPPORTUNITY 

have no leisure ; they have not the means. But they can if 
they will; leisure to improve oneself is never wanting, and 
they who seek find the means. There is always opportunity 
to do right, though he who does it stand alone, like Abdiel, 

5 Among innumerable false, unmoved, 

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified. 

5. Let a man but have an aim, a purpose, and opportunities 
to attain his end shall start forth like buds at the kiss of 
spring. If we do not know what we want, how shall anything 

10 be made to serve us? The heedless" walk through deserts in 
which the observant find the most precious things. Little is 
to be hoped for from the weavers of pretexts, from those who 
tell us what they should do, if circumstances were other. 
What hinders helps, where souls are alive. Say not thou lackest 

15 talent. What talent had any of the great ones better than 
their passionate trust in the efficacy of labor? 

6. The important thing is to have an aim and to pursue it 
with perseverance. What is the aim the wise should propose 
to themselves ? Not getting and possessing, but becoming and 

20 being. Man is not only more than anything that can belong 
ta him : he is greater than planets and solar systems. We 
easily persuade ourselves that were circumstances more favor- 
able we should be better and happier. It may be so, but the 
mood is weak and foolish. There is never a question of what 

25 might have been where true men think and act. The past is 
irrecoverable. It is our business to do what we can here and 
now, and regrets serve but to enfeeble and distract us. The 
boundless good lies near each one, and though a thousand 
times it has eluded us, let us believe that now we shall hold it 

30 fast. From failure to failure we rise toward truth and love. 
The ascent is possible even for the lowliest of God's creatures. 
When, indeed, we look backward through long years of life, 
lost opportunities rise before us like mocking fiends crying, 



SPALDING 317 

"Too late, too late ! Nevermore, nevermore ! "; but the wise heed 
no voice that bids them lose heart. They look ever forward, 
they press toward the mark, knowing that the present moment 
is the only opportunity. Now is the day of salvation, now is 
the day of doom. The individual is but as a bubble that rises 5 
from out the infinite ocean of being and bursts in the inane ; 
but his life is nevertheless enrooted in the Absolute, and all 
the circumstances by which his existence is surrounded and 
attended are but meant to awaken in him a knowledge and 
appreciation of his abiding and inestimable worth. They all, 10 
therefore, are or may be made opportunities. The paramount 
consideration is not what will procure for him more money, 
finer houses, better machines, more rapid or more destructive 
engines, but what will make him wiser, stronger, holier, more 
loving, more godlike. 15 

7. What innumerable blessings we miss through lack of sen- 
sibility, of openness to light, of fair-mindedness, of insight, of 
teachableness, — virtues which it is possible for all to cultivate ! 
The best is not ours, not because it is far away and unattain- 
able, but because we ourselves are indifferent, narrow, short- 20 
sighted and unsympathetic. To make our world larger and 
fairer it is not necessary to discover or acquire new ob- 
jects, but to grow into conscious and loving harmony with 
the good which is ever-present and inviting. How much of 
life's joy we lose from want of a fearless and cheerful spirit ! 25 
The brave and glad-hearted, like the beautiful, are welcome in 
all companies. 

8. It is our own fault if beauty is not ours. A fair and 
luminous mind creates a body after its own image. With 
health and a soul, nor man nor woman can be other than 30- 
beautiful, whatever the features. The most potent charm is 
that of expression. As the moonlight clothes the rugged and 
jagged mountain with loveliness, so a noble mind transfigures 

its vesture. 



3l8 OPPORTUNITY 

9. The man himself is the best part of the opportunity. 
The starHt heaven is not sublime when there is no soul capable 
of awe ; the spring is not fair where there is no glad heart to 
see and feel. Opportunity is living correspondence with one's 

5 environment. Where there is no correspondence there is no 
opportunity. For ages the exhaustless resources of America 
lay unknown and unutilized because the right kind of a man ! 
was not here. The Kimberley diamonds were but worthless \ 
pebbles, the playthings of the children of savages, until it \ 
10 chanced that they fell under the eye of one who knew how ] 
to look. ... i 

10. Here in America, above all, the new age approaching 
offers opportunity. Here only a beginning has been made ; ; 
we have but felled the forest, and drained the marsh, and i 

1 5 bridged the river, and built the road ; but cleared the wild- ; 

wood and made wholesome the atmosphere for a more fortu- ; 

nate race, whom occasion shall invite to greater thoughts and 

more godlike deeds. We stand in the front rank of those who ! 

face life, dowered with all the instruments of power which ■ 
20 the labors of the strongest and wisest in all time and place \ 

have provided. ; 

11. We might have been born savages or slaves, in a land 
of cannibals or tyrants ; but we enter life welcomed by all I 
that gives worth and joy, courage and security to man. There | 

25 is inspiration in the air of America. Here all is fresh and i 

young, here progress is less difficult, here there is hope and { 

confidence, here there is eagerness to know and to do. Here j 

they who are intelligent, sober, industrious, and self-denying j 

may get what money is needed for leisure and independence, \ 

30 for the founding of a home and the right education of children, t 

— the wealth which strengthens and liberates, not the excess ' 
which undermines and destroys. The material is good but in 
so far as it is a means to spiritual good. The power to think 
and appreciate the thoughts of others, to love and to be happy 



SPALDING 



319 



in the joy, the courage, the beauty, and the goodness of others, 
lifts us above our temporal environment, and endows us with 
riches of which money can never be the equivalent. A great 
thought or a noble love, like a beautiful object, bears us away 
from the hard and narrow world of our selfish interest, dips us 5 
in the clear waters of pure delight, and makes us glad as children 
who lie in the shade and catch the snowy blossoms as they fall. 
12. No true man ever believes that it is not possible to do 
great things without great riches. When, therefore, we say 
with Emerson, that America is but a name for opportunity, we 10 
do not emphasize its material resources or the facility with 
which they may be made available. He who knows that the 
good of life lies within and that it is infinite, capable of being 
cherished and possessed more and more by whoever seeks it 
with all his heart, understands that a little of what is external 15 
is sufficient and is not hard to acquire. He, therefore, neither 
gives himself to the pursuit of wealth or fame or pleasure or 
position, nor thinks those fortunate who are rich in these things. 
He feels that the worst misfortune is not the loss of money or 
friends or reputation, but the loss of inner strength and whole- 20 
ness, of faith in God and man, of self-respect, of the desire for 
knowledge and virtue. The darkened mind, the callous heart, 
the paralytic will, — these are the root evils. Is man a real 
being, with an element of freedom, responsibility, and perma- 
nence in his constitution, or is he but a phantom, a bubble that 25 
rises and floats for a moment, and then bursts in the boundless 
inane, where all things disappear and are no more? This is 
the radical question, for if the individual wholly ceases to be 
at death, the race jtself is but a parasite of a planet which 
is slowly perishing ; and life's formula is, — from nothing to 30 
nothing. But nothingness is inconceivable, for to think is to 
be conscious of being ; something exists ; therefore something 
has always existed. Being is a mental conception ; and when 
we affirm that it is eternal we affirm the eternity of mind, that 



320 OPPORTUNITY 

mind is involved in the nature of things. It is the conscious- 
ness of this that makes it impossible for the soul to accept a 
mechanical theory of the universe or to rest content with what 
is material. It is akin to the infinite Spirit, and for man oppor- 

5 tunity is opportunity to develop his true self, to grow in wisdom 
and love. What he yearns for in his deepest heart is not to 
eat and drink, but to live in ever-increasing conscious com- 
munion with the vital truth which is the soul's nourishment, 
the element in which faith and hope and freedom thrive. The 

lo modern mind, having gained a finer insight into the play of 
the forces of nature, which are ceaselessly being transformed 
into new modes of existence, seems threatened with loss of the 
power of perceiving the Eternal. But this enfeeblement and 
perturbation are temporary, and on our wider knowledge we 

15 shall build a nobler and more glorious temple wherein to believe 
and serve, to love and pray. That man, who lives but a day 
and is but an atom, should imagine that he partakes of the 
attributes of the eternal and absolute Being, would seem to be 
absurd. None the less all that is most real and highest in him 

20 impels to this behef . To lose it is to lose faith in the meaning 
and worth of life ; is to abandon the principle that issues in 
the heroic struggles and sufferings by which freedom, civiliza- 
tion, art, science, and religion have been won and secured as 
the chief blessings of the race. It is not possible to find true 

25 joy except in striving for the infinite, for something we have 
not yet, which we can never have, here at least. Hence, what- 
ever purpose a man cherish, whatever task he set himself, he 
finds his work stretching forth endlessly. The more he attains 
the more clearly he perceives the boundless unattained. His 

30 success is ever becoming failure, his riches poverty, his knowl- 
edge ignorance, his virtue vice. The higher he rises in power 
of thought and love, the more what he thinks and loves seems 
to melt away and disappear in the abysmal depths of the All- 
perfect Being, who is forever and forever, of whom he is born. 



SPALDING 321 

and whom to seek through endless time were a blessed lot. It 
is the hope of finding Him that lures the soul to unseen worlds, 
lifts it out of the present, driving it to the past and the future, 
that it may live with vanished saints and heroes, or with the 
diviner men who yet shall be. 5 

13. It is only when we walk in the spirit and follow in the 
footsteps of the Son of God that we come to understand that 
life is opportunity, rich as earth, wide as heaven, deep as the 
soul. We weary of everything, — of labor, of rest, of pleasure, 

of success, of the company of friends, and of our own, but not 10 
of the Divine Presence uttering itself in hope and love, in peace 
and joy. They who live with sensual thoughts and desires soon 
come to find them a burden and a blight ; but the lowly minded 
and the clean in heart, who are busy with whatsoever things 
are true and fair and good, feel themselves in a serene world 15 
where it is always delightful to be. When we understand that 
all is from God and for Him, and turn our wills wholly to Him, 
trouble, doubt, and anxiety die away, and the soul rests in the 
calm and repose that belong to whatever is eternal. He sees 
all and is not disturbed. Why should we be filled with appre- 20 
hension because there are ripples in the little pond where our 
lifeboat floats? 

14. The followers of the Divine Master best know that true 
men need not great opportunities. He himself met with no 
occasions which may not be offered to any one. His power 25 
and goodness are most manifest amidst the simplest and lowliest 
surroundings. To beggars, fishermen, and shepherds he speaks 
words which resound throughout the ages and still awaken in 
myriad hearts echoes from higher worlds. Whether He walks 
amid the cornfields, or sits by the well, or from a boat or a 30 
hillside speaks to the ' multitude ; whether He confronts the 
elders who bring Him the guilty woman, or stands before 
Pilate, or hangs on the cross. He is equally noble, fair, and 
Godlike. The lesson He teaches by word and deed is that we 



322 OPPORTUNITY 

should not wait for opportunity, but that the secret of true life 
and best achievement lies in doing well the thing the Heavenly 
Father gives us to do. He who throws himself resolutely and 
with perseverance into a course of worthy action will at last 
5 hear the discords of human existence die away into harmonies ; 
for if the voice within whispers that all is well, it is fair weather, 
however the clouds may lower or the lightning play. What we 
habitually love and Hve by, will, in due season, bud, blossom, 
and bear fruit. 

10 15. Opportunity in the highest sense of the word is oppor- 
tunity for education, for making ourselves men. This end every 
occasion should serve, since for this we are born. " We should 
as far as it is possible," says Aristotle, " make ourselves immor- 
tal, and strive to live by that part of ourselves which is more 

15 excellent." Now, the testimony of the wise of all ages agrees 
that a virtuous life is the best and the happiest. Choose and 
follow it then, though thou find it hard ; for custom will make it 
easy and pleasant. Piety nourishes faith, hope, and love, and 
therefore sustains life. If thou seekest for what is new and also 

20 permanently interesting, live with the old truths, until they 
strike root in thy being and break into new light and power. 
The happenings of the day and year are but novelties, but 
bubbles that burst in the vacant air ; that which is forever new 
is ancient as God. It is that whereby the soul lives. It was 

25 with the first man when first he blossomed forth from eternity ; 
it is with thee now and shall be with all men until the end. 
It is the source whence thy being springs; its roots dip into 
infinity; its flowers make the universe glad and sweet; it is 
the power which awakens the soul to the consciousness of its 

30 kinship with Him who is all in all, who is life and truth and 
love, who the more He is sought and loved doth seem to be 
the more divinely beautiful and good. Learn to live with the 
thoughts which are symbols of His Eternal Being, and thou 
shalt come to feel that nothing else is so fresh or fair. As a 



SPALDING 323 

sound may suggest light and color, a perfume recall forgotten 
worlds ; as a view, disclosed by a turn in the road, may carry 
us across years and oceans to scenes and friends long unvisited ; 
as a bee, weaving his winding path from flower to flower, may 
bring back the laughter of children, the songs of birds, and the 5 
visionary clouds fallen asleep in the voluptuous sky of June; 
so the universe will come to utter for us the voice of the 
Creator, who is our Father. Nothing touches the soul but 
leaves its impress, and thus, little by little, we are fashioned 
into the image of all we have seen and heard, known and medi- 10 
tated ; and if we learn to live with all that is fairest and purest 
and best, the love of it all will in the end become our very life. 



SALT 

Henry van Dyke 
Baccalaureate sermon, Harvard University, June, 1898 

INTRODUCTION 

Henry van Dyke, preacher, author, and educator, was born in 
Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1852. He graduated from Prince- 
ton University in 1873, from the Princeton Theological Seminary 
in 1877, and from Berlin University in 1878. From 1878 to 1882 
he was pastor of the United Congregational Church of Newport, 
Rhode Island, and then of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New 
York, till 1900, when he accepted a professorship of English 
literature at Princeton. 

His works include : The Reality of Religion (1884) ; The Story 
of the Psalms (1887) ; The Poetjy of Tennyson (1889, 1895); The 
Christ Child in Art (1894) ; Little Rivers (1895) ; The Gospel for 
an Age of Doubt (1896); The Other Wise Man (1896); The 
Builders and Other Poejns (1897); The Gospel for a World of 
Sin ( 1 899) ; The Toiling of Felix ^ and other Poems ( 1 900) ; Tlie 
Ruling Passion (1901) ; and The Blue Flower (1902). 

Dr. van Dyke combines the highest degree of intellect with the 
highest felicity of literary expression. No modern writer has been 
so frequently quoted for his short, pithy proverbs. He is also one 
of the most successful preachers of to-day. In his pulpit discourses 
there is marked breadth, but also marked decision and definite- 
ness ; the vagueness that often characterizes sennons is wholly 
absent from his preaching. 

As a pulpit orator, Dr. van Dyke enjoys a reputation second to 
none in America ; and an address on " Christianity and Literature," 
delivered before the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance in Liverpool, Eng- 
land, was declared by the British Weekly (London, July 7, 1904) , 

325 



326 . SALT 

to have touched " the oratorical high-water mark " of the conven- 
tion. His oratory, with no effort to produce artificial effects, is 
characterized by a strong virility, and by a certain moral vivacity 
and dash which makes it peculiarly effective in college chapels. 
" His thought is not only strikingly objective in statement, but has 
in it the resonant quality of a conviction which enlists the imagi- 
nation and the emotions as well as the intellect. . . . The secret 
of his power lies in the prime qualities of the man : his courage, 
loyalty, sincerity in life and art ; above all, his tireless pursuit of 
complete and adequate self-expression." 

Ye are the salt of the earth. — Matthew v. 13. 

1 . This figure of speech is plain and pungent. Salt is savory, 
purifying, preservative. It is one of those superfluities which 
the great French wit defined as " things that are very neces- 
sary." From the very beginning of human history men have 

5 set a high value upon it and sought for it in caves and by the 
seashore. The nation that had a good supply of it was counted 
rich. A bag of salt, among the barbarous tribes, was worth 
more than a man. The Jews prized it especially because they 
lived in a warm climate where food was difficult to keep, and 
ID because their religion laid particular emphasis on cleanliness, 
and because salt was largely used in their sacrifices. 

2. Christ chose an image which was familiar when He said 
to His disciples, " Ye are the salt of the earth." This was His 
conception of their mission, their influence. They were to 

15 cleanse and sweeten the' world in which they lived, to keep it 
from decay, to give a new and more wholesome flavor to 
human existence. Their character was not to be passive, but 
active. The sphere of its action was to be this present life. 
There is no use in saving salt for heaven. It will not be 

20 needed there. Its mission is to permeate, season, and purify 
things on earth. 

3. Now, from one point of view, it was an immense compli- 
ment for the disciples to be spoken to in this way. Their 



VAN DYKE 327 

Master showed great confidence in them. He set a high value 
upon them. The historian Livy could find nothing better to 
express his admiration for the people of ancient Greece than 
this very phrase. He called them sal gentium^ " the salt of 
the nations." 5 

4. But it was not from this point of view that Christ was 
speaking. He was not paying compliments. He was giving a 
clear and powerful call to duty. His thought was not that His 
disciples should congratulate themselves on being better than 
other men. He wished them to ask themselves whether they 10 
actually had in them the purpose and the power to make other 
men better. Did they intend to exercise a purifying, season- 
ing, saving influence in the world? Were they going to make 
their presence felt on earth and felt for good? If not, they 
would be failures and frauds. The savor would be out of them. 15 
They would be like lumps of rock salt which has lain too long 

in a damp storehouse ; good for nothing but to be thrown 
away and trodden under foot ; worth less than common rock 
or common clay, because it would not even make good roads. 

5. Men of privilege without power are waste material. Men 20 
of enlightenment without influence are the poorest kind of 
rubbish. Men of intellectual and moral and religious culture, 
who are not active forces for good in society, are not worth 
what it costs to produce and keep them. If they pass for 
Christians they are guilty of obtaining respect under false pre- 25 
tenses. They were meant to be the salt of the earth. And 
the first duty of salt is to be salty. 

6. This is the subject on which I want to speak to you 
to-day. The saltiness of salt is the symbol of a noble, power- 
ful, truly religious life. 30 

7. You college students are men of privilege. It costs ten 
times as much, in labor and care and money, to bring you out 
where you are to-day as it costs to educate the average man, 
and a hundred times as much as it costs to raise a boy without 



328 SALT 

any education. This fact brings you face to face with a ques- 
tion : Are you going to be worth your salt? 

8. You have had mental training and plenty of instruction 
in various branches of learning. You ought to be full of intel- 

5 ligence. You have had moral discipline, and the influences of 
good example have been steadily brought to bear upon you. 
You ought to be full of principle. You have had religious advan- 
tages and abundant inducements to choose the better part. You 
ought to be full of faith. What are you going to do with your 
10 intelligence, your principle, your faith? It is your duty to make 
active use of them for the seasoning, the cleansing, the saving 
of the world. Do not be sponges. Be the salt of the earth. 

9. I. Think, first, of the influence for good which men of 
intelligence may exercise in the world if they will only put 

15 their culture to the right use. Half the troubles of mankind 
come from ignorance — ignorance which is systematically 
organized with societies for its support and newspapers for its 
dissemination — ignorance which consists less in not knowing 
things than in willfully ignoring the things that are already 

20 known. There are certain physical diseases which would go 
out of existence in ten years if people would only remember 
what has been learned. There are certain political and social 
plagues which are propagated only in the atmosphere of shal- 
low self-confidence and vulgar thoughtlessness. There is a 

25 yellow fever of literature specially adapted and prepared for 
the spread of shameless curiosity, incorrect information, and 
complacent idiocy among all classes of the population. Per- 
sons who fall under the influence of this pest become so trium- 
phantly ignorant that they cannot distinguish between news 

30 and knowledge. They develop a morbid thirst for printed 
matter, and the more they read the less they learn. They are 
fit soil for the bacteria of folly and fanaticism. 

10. Now the men of thought, of cultivation, of reason in 
the community ought to be an antidote to these dangerous 



VAN DYKE 329 

influences. Having been instructed in the lessons of history 
and science and philosophy they are bound to contribute their 
knowledge to the service of society. As a rule they are willing 
enough to do this for pay, in the professions of law and medi- 
cine and teaching and divinity. What I plead for is the wider, 5 
nobler, unpaid service which an educated man renders to 
society simply by being thoughtful and by helping other men 
to think. 

1 1 . The college men of a country ought to be its most con- 
servative men ; that is to say, the men who do most to conserve it. 10 
They ought to be the men whom demagogues cannot inflame nor 
pohtical bosses pervert. They ought to bring wild theories to 
the test of reason, and withstand rash experiments with obsti- 
nate prudence. When it is proposed, for example, to enrich the 
whole nation by debasing its currency, they should be the men 1 5 
who demand time to think whether real wealth can be created 
by artificial legislation. And if they succeed in winning time 

to think, the danger will pass — or rather it will be transformed 
into some other danger requiring a new application of the salt 
of intelligence. For the fermenting activity of ignorance is 20 
incessant, and perpetual thoughtfulness is the price of social 
safety. 

1 2 . But it is not ignorance alone that works harm in the body 
of society. Passion is equally dangerous. Take, for instance, a 
time when war is imminent. How easily and how wildly the 25 
passions of men are roused by the mere talk of fighting. How 
ready they are to plunge into a fierce conflict for an unknown 
motive, for a base motive, or for no motive at all. Educated 
men should be the steadiest opponents of war while it is avoid- 
able. But when it becomes inevitable, save at a cost of a fail- 30 
ure in duty and a loss of honor, then they should be the most 
vigorous advocates of carrying it to a swift, triumphant, and 
noble end. No man ought to be too much educated to love his 
country and, if need be, to die for it. The culture which leaves 



330 SALT 

a man without a flag is only one degree less miserable than 
that which leaves him without a God. To be empty of enthu- 
siams and overflowing with criticisms is not a sign of culti- 
vation, but of enervation. The best learning is that which 
5 intensifies a man's patriotism as well as clarifies it. The finest 
education is that which puts a man in closest touch with his 
fellow-men. The true intelligence is that which acts, not as 
cayenne pepper to sting the world, but as salt to cleanse and 
conserve it. 

10 13. 11. Think, in the second place, of the duty which men 
of moral principle owe to society in regard to the evils which 
corrupt and degrade it. Of the existence of these evils we need 
to be reminded again and again, just because we are compara- 
tively clean and decent and upright people. Men who live 

15 an orderly life are in great danger of doing nothing else. We 
wrap our virtue up in little bags of respectability and keep it 
in the storehouse of a safe reputation. But if it is genuine vir- 
tue it is worthy of a better use than that. It is fit, nay it is 
designed and demanded, to be used as salt, for the purifying 

20 of human life. 

14. There are multitudes of our fellow-men whose existence 
is dark, confused, and bitter. Some of them are groaning under 
the burden of want ; partly because of their own idleness or 
incapacity, no doubt, but partly also because of the rapacity, 

25 greed, and injustice of other men. Some of them are tortured 
in bondage to vice ; partly by their own false choice, no doubt, 
but partly also for want of guidance and good counsel and human 
sympathy. Every great city contains centers of moral decay 
which an honest man cannot think of without horror, pity, and 

30 dread. The trouble is that many honest folk dishke these 
emotions so much that they shut their eyes and walk through 
the world with their heads in the air, breathing a little atmos- 
phere of their own, and congratulating themselves that the 
world goes very well now. But is it well that the things which 



VAN DYKE 331 

eat the heart out of manhood and womanhood should go on 
in all our great towns? 

Is it well that while we range with science, glorying in the time, 
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime ? 
There, among the glooming alleys, progress halts on palsied feet ; 5 
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street. 
There the smoldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor, 
And the crowded couch of incest, in the warrens of the pooi:. 

Even in what we call respectable society, forces of corruption 
are at work. Are there no unrighteous practices in business, no 10 
false standards in social life, no licensed frauds and falsehoods 
in politics, no vile and vulgar tendencies in art and literature 
and journalism, in this sunny and self-complacent modern 
world of which we are apart? All these things are signs of 
decay. The question for us as men of salt is : What are we 15 
going to do to arrest and counteract these tendencies? It is 
not enough for us to take a negative position in regard to 
them. If our influence is to be real, it must be positive. 
It is not enough to say " Touch not the unclean thing." On 
the contrary, we must touch it, as salt touches decay to 20 
check and overcome it. Good men are not meant to be simply 
like trees planted by rivers of water, flourishing in their own 
pride and for their own sake. They ought to be like the 
eucalyptus trees which have been set out in the marshes of the 
Campagna, from which a healthful, tonic influence is said 25 
to be diffused to countervail the malaria. They ought to be 
like the tree of paradise, '' whose leaves are for the healing 
of nations." 

15. Where good men are in business, lying and cheating 
and gambling should be more difficult, truth and candor and 30 
fair dealing should be easier and more popular, just because of 
their presence. Where good men are in society, grossness of 
thought and speech ought to stand rebuked, high ideals and 
courtliness and chivalrous actions and " the desire of fame and 



332 SALT 

all that makes a man " ought to seem at once more desirable 
and more attainable to every one who comes into contact with 
them. 

1 6. There have been men of this quality in the world. It is 
5 recorded of Bernardino of Siena, that when he came into the 

room, his gentleness and purity were so evident that all that 
was base and silly in the talk of his companions was abashed and 
fell into silence. Artists like Fra Angelico have made their 
pictures like prayers. Warriors like the Chevalier Bayard and 

lo Sir Philip Sidney and Henry Havelock and Chinese Gordon 
have dwelt amid camps and conflicts as Knights of the Holy 
Ghost. Philosophers like John Locke and George Berkeley, 
men of science like Newton and Herschel, poets like Words- 
worth and Tennyson and Browning, have taught virtue by their 

15 lives as well as wisdom by their works. Humanitarians like 
Howard and Wilberforce and Raikes and Charles Brace have 
given themselves to noble causes. Every man who will has it 
in his power to make his life count for something positive in 
the redemption of society. And this is what every man of 

20 moral principle is bound to do if he wants to belong to the 
salt of the earth. 

1 7 . There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in 
the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. 
There is a nobler character than that which is merely incor- 

25 ruptible. It is the character which acts as an antidote and 
preventive of corruption. Fearlessly to speak the words which 
bear witness to righteousness and truth and purity ; patiently to 
do the deeds which strengthen virtue and kindle hope in your- 
fellow-men ; generously to lend a hand to those who are trying 

30 to climb upward ; faithfully to give your support and your 
personal help to the efforts which are making to elevate and 
purify the social life of the world, — that is what it means to have 
salt in your character. And that is the way to make your life 
interesting and savory and powerful. The men that have been 



VAN DYKE 333 

happiest, and the men that are the best remembered, are the 
men that have done good. 

1 8. What the world needs to-day is not a new system of ethics. 
It is simply a larger number of people who will make a steady 
effort to live up to the system that they have already. There is 5 
plenty of room for heroism in the plainest kind of duty. The 
greatest of all wars has been going on for centuries. It is the 
ceaseless, glorious conflict against the evil that is in the world. 
Every warrior who will enter that age-long battle may find a 
place in the army, and win his spurs, and achieve honor, and 10 
obtain favor with the great Captain of the Host, if he will but do 
his best to make his life purer and finer for every one that lives. 

19. It is one of the burning questions of to-day whether 
university life and training really fit men for taking their share 

in this supreme conflict. There is no abstract answer; but 15 
every college class that graduates is a part of the concrete 
answer. Therein lies your responsibility. Gentlemen. It lies 
with you to illustrate the meanness of an education which 
produces learned shirks and refined skulkers ; or to illumi- 
nate the perfection of unselfish culture with the light of devo- 20 
tion to humanity. It lies with you to confess that you have 
not been strong enough to assimilate your privileges ; or to 
prove that you are able to use all that you have learned for 
the end for which it was intended. I believe the difference 
in the results depends very much less upon the educational sys- 25 
tem than it does upon the personal quality of the teachers and 
the men. Richard Porson was a university man, and he seemed 
to live chiefly to drink port and read Greek. Thomas Guthrie 
was a university man, and he proved that he meant what he 
said in his earnest verse, — 30 

I live for those who love me, 

For those who know me true, 
For the heaven that bends above me, 

And the good that I can do ; 



334 SALT 

For the wrongs that need resistance, 
For the cause that lacks assistance, 
For the future in the distance, 
And the good that I can do. 

5 20. III. It remains only to speak briefly, in the third place, 
of the part which religion ought to play in the purifying, pre- 
serving, and sweetening of society. Hitherto I have spoken to 
you simply as men of intelligence and men of principle. But 
the loftiest reach of reason and the strongest inspiration of 

10 morality is religious faith. I know there are some thought- 
ful men, upright men, unselfish and useful men, who say that 
they have no such faith. But they are very few. And the reason 
of their rarity is because it is immensely difficult to be unselfish 
and useful and thoughtful, without a conscious faith in God, 

15 and in the divine law, and in the gospel of salvation, and in 
the future life. I trust that none of you are going to try that 
desperate experiment. I trust that all of you have religion to 
guide and sustain you in life's hard and perilous adventure. 
If you have, I beg you to make sure that it is the right kind of 

20 religion. The name makes little difference. The outward form 
makes httle difference. The test of its reahty is its power to 
cleanse life and make it worth living ; to save the things that are 
most precious in our existence from corruption and decay ; to 
lend a new luster to our ideals and to feed our hopes with 

25 inextinguishable light ; to produce characters which shall ful- 
fill Christ's word and be the salt of the earth. 

21. Religion is something which a man cannot invent for 
himself, nor keep to himself. If it does not show in his con- 
duct it does not exist in his heart. If he has just barely enough 

30 of it to save himself alone, it is doubtful whether he has even 
enough for that. Religion ought to bring out and intensify the 
flavor of all that is best in manhood, and make it fit, to use 
Wordsworth's noble phrase, 

For human nature's daily food. 



VAN DYKE 335 

Good citizens, honest workmen, cheerful comrades, true friends, 
gentle men, — that is what the product of religion should be. 
And the power that produces such men is the great antiseptic 
of society, to preserve it from decay. 

2 2. Decay begins in discord. It is the loss of balance in an 5 
organism. One part of the system gets too much nourishment, 
another part too little. Morbid processes are established. Tis- 
sues break down. In their debris all sorts of malignant growths 
take root. Ruin follows. 

23. Now this is precisely the danger to which the social 10 
organism is exposed. From this danger religion is meant to 
preserve us. Certainly there can be no true Christianity which 
does not aim at this result. It should be a balancing, compen- 
sating, regulating power. It should keep the relations between 
man and man, between class and class, normal and healthful 15 
and mutually beneficent. It should humble the pride of the 
rich, and moderate the envy of the poor. It should soften and 
ameliorate the unavoidable inequalities of life, and transform 
them from causes of jealous hatred into opportunities of loving 
and generous service. If it fails to do this it is salt without 20 
savor, and when a social revolution comes, as the consequence 

of social corruption, men will cast out the unsalted religion 
and tread it under foot. 

24. Was not this what happened in the French Revolution? 
What did men care for the religion that had failed to curb 25 
sensuality and pride and cruelty under the oppression of the 
old regime, the religion that had forgotten to deal bread to the 
hungry, to comfort the afflicted, to break every yoke, and let 
the oppressed go free? What did they care for the religion 
that had done little or nothing to make men understand and 30 
love and help one another? Nothing. It was the first thing 
that they threw away in the madness of their revolt and trampled 

in the mire of their contempt. 

2 5 . But was the world much better off without that false kind 
of religion than with it? Did the Revolution really accomplish 35 



336 SALT 

anything for the purification and preservation of society? 
No, it only turned things upside down, and brought the ele- 
ments that had been at the bottom to the top. It did not really 
change the elements, or sweeten life, or arrest the processes of 
5 decay. The only thing that can do this is the true kind of 
religion, which brings men closer to one another by bringing 
them all nearer to God. 

26. Some people say that another revolution is coming in 
our own age and our own country. It is possible. There are 

10 signs of it. There has been a tremendous increase of luxury 
among the rich in the present generation. There has been a 
great increase of suffering among the poor in certain sections 
of our country. It was a startling fact that nearly six millions 
of people in 1896 cast a vote of practical discontent with the 

15 present social and commercial order. It may be that we are 
on the eve of a great overturning. I do not know. I am not 
a prophet nor the son of a prophet. But I know that there is 
one thing that can make a revolution needless, one thing that is 
infinitely better than any revolution, and that is a real revival 

20 of reHgion — the religion that has already founded the hospital 
and the asylum and the free school, the religion that has broken 
the fetters of the slave and lifted womanhood out of bondage 
and degradation, and put the arm of^ its protection around 
the helplessness and innocence of childhood, the religion that 

25 proves its faith by its works, and Hnks the preaching of the 
fatherhood of God to the practice of the brotherhood of man. 
That religion is true Christianity, with plenty of salt in it which 
has not lost its savor. 

27. I believe that we are even now in the beginning of a 
30 renaissance of such religion. I believe that there is a rising 

tide of desire to find the true meaning of Christ's teaching, to 
feel the true power of Christ's life, to interpret the true signifi- 
cance of Christ's sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. I 
believe that never before were there so many young men of 



VAN DYKE 337 

culture, of intelligence, of character, passionately in earnest to 
find the way of making their religion speak, not in word only, 
but in power. I call you to-day, my brethren, to take your 
part, not with the idle, the frivolous, the faithless, the selfish, 
the gilded youth, but with the earnest, the manly, the devout, 5 
the devoted, the golden youth. I summon you to do your share 
in the renaissance of religion for your own sake, for your fellow- 
men's sake, for your country's sake. On this fair Sunday, when 
all around us tells of bright hope and glorious promise, let the 
vision of our country, with her perils, with her opportunities, 10 
with her temptations, with her splendid powers, wdth her threat- 
ening sins, rise before our souls. What needs she more, in this 
hour, than the cleansing, saving, conserving influence of right 
religion? What better service could we render her than to set 
our lives to the tune of these words of Christ, and be indeed 15 
the salt of our country, and, through her growing power, of the 
whole earth ? Ah, bright will be the day, and full of glory, when 
the bells of every church, of every schoolhouse, of every col- 
lege, of every university, ring with the music of this message, 
and find their echo in the hearts of the youth of America. 20 
That will be the chime of a new age. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land. 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 25 



NOTES 

CONCILIATION WITH THE AMERICAN COLONIES — 

BURKE 

Bibliography. Prior, Life of Burke ; John Morley, Burke, in the 
English Men of Letters Series, and in the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; 
William Hazlitt, " The Character of Burke," in his Essays, pp. 408- 
426; Boswell, Life of Johnsoti (see Index); Leslie Stephen, History of 
English Thoicght in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. II ; Green, Short 
History of the English People ; Buckle, History of Civilization in Eng- 
land, Vol. I, pp. 326-338 ; Fiske, The Americaji Revolntioji, Vol. I, 
Chaps. I, II. To the article on Burke in the Dictionary of National 
Biography a valuable bibliography is appended. 

Chronology of A/ore Notezvo7'thy Writings and Speeches. 1756 — A 
Vindication of Natural Society ; Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful ; 
Hints on the Drama ; An Abridgment of the History of England ; and 
An Account of the European Settlements. 1759 — A thirty-years con- 
nection with the Annual Register began. 1766 — Speech on the Repeal 
of the Stamp Act. 1770^ — Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Dis- 
contents. 1774 — Speech on American Taxation. 1775 — Speech on 
Conciliation with the American Colonies. 1777 — Letter to the Sheriffs 
of Bristol on the Affairs of America. 1785 — Speech on the Nabob of 
Arcot's Debts. 1 788 — The Impeachment of Warren Hastings. 1 790 — 
Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1 794 — Letter to a Noble Lord. 

In the study of this speech, whatever may be the method of approach 
by the individual student or teacher, some time, certainly, should be 
devoted to the argumentative structure. And although a laborious and 
time-taking process, the best way for the student to get a thorough 
grasp of the argument as a whole is to write a brief of it. The preferred 
form of a brief has the following characteristics : Each heading is in the 
form of a complete sentence and contains but a single argument. The 
main arguments are stated in a series of propositions which read as 
reasons for the conclusion to be reached, or the main proposition. Then 
under each proposition of the first rank are such subheadings as support 
such proposition. These subheadings may themselves be supported 
by sub-subheadings, and so on. Every subhead must always read as a 
reason for the heading under which it stands. All subheadings of the 
same rank should be regularly indented, so that the reader may see at 
a glance the place of any heading in the argument. 

Below is a skeleton brief of the speech as a whole (a few minor 
arguments being omitted). The main arguments — the propositions of 
first rank — are given, but most of the arguments in support of the 

339 



340 



NOTES 



main propositions are left for the student to discover and insert. Bear 
in mind that each heading should be stated in the form of a complete 
sentence. Use Burke's own words, wherever practicable. In many of 
the paragraphs will be found a key-sentence which contains the gist of 
the whole paragraph ; in all such cases, simply copy such key-sentences 
for the required heading. The arable numerals in parentheses are 
paragraph-references. 

Introduction 

I. By the return of the Grand Penal Bill from the House of Lords, 
we are now in a position to determine de novo upon a definite 
policy regarding the American colonies, (i) 
II. Having studied the subject, I have arrived at certain fixed con- 
clusions. (2, 3) 

III. My attitude toward America has not changed, while Parliament 

has pursued a policy of shifting experiments. (4) 

IV. The policy that I desire to urge must stand or fall solely on its 

merits. (5) 
V. My proposition is to remove the grounds of difference between 
England and the colonies and thereby establish permanent 
peace. (6, 7) 
VI. My plan has certain presumptions in its favor, because 

A. By accepting Lord North's plan, the House has conceded 

that the idea of conciliation is admissible. (8) 

B. The House has declared conciliation admissible previous to 

any submission on the part of America. (9) 

C. The House has admitted that the colonists' complaints 

regarding taxation were not unfounded. (9) 
VII. The proposal of conciliation should come from us (10), for, 

A. England is the superior power. (10) 

B. The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. (10) 
VIII. The two main issues are : First, Ought you to concede ? Second, 

"What ought your concession to be ? (11) 

Argument 

1. Circumstances in the American colonies demand conciliation 
(11), for 

A. (12, 13) — \^Put the gist of paragraphs 12 andij tn a single 
sentejtce, making it read as a reason for the above propo- 
sition. Follow this same plan in filliiig out all the succeed- 
ing blank headings^ 

B. (14-25) 

C. (26) 

D. (27) 

II. The temper and character of the Americans demand conciliation 
(28), for, 
A. (29), for, 

1- (30) 

2- (3O 



BURKE 



341 





B. 


(32) 
















C. 


{33) 














III. 


Our experiments 


in governing the 


colonists have proved unsuc- 




cessf 


ul (34, 35) 


, for, 












A. 


(35) 
















B. 


(35) 
















C. 


(36) 














IV. 


Of the 


three 


proposed plans (37) 


for governing 


the colonies, 


we 




must 


adopt that of conciliation, 


for, 








A. 


(38), 


for, 
I. 

2. 

3- 

4- 


(39), for, 
a. 
Ik 

(42) 

(44) 

(45) 


(39) 
(40) 


• 








B. 


(46), 


for, 
I. 

2. 

3- 


(47) 
(48) 
(49) 











c. (51) 

V. The measures for conciliation should satisfy the colonists' com- 
plaint regarding taxation, for, 

A. (52) 

B. (53) 

C. (54) 

VI. The argument that the grievance of taxation extends to all legis- 
lation, and that by conceding this grievance the supremacy 
of Parliament would be threatened, cannot stand (58), for, 

A. (59) 

B. (60) 

C. (61) 
D. (62) 

VII. My plan for conciliating the colonies is better than Lord North's 
(63), for. 



A. 


(64) 










B. 


(65), 


for, 
I. 


(65) 






C. 
D. 


(66), 
(67), 


for, 
I. 

for, 
I. 
2. 

3- 
4- 


(66) 

(67) 
(68) 

(69) 
(70) 










5- 


(71), 


for, 
a. 


(71) 


E. 


(72) 










F. 


(73) 










G. 


(76) 











342 NOTES 

Conclusion 

I. The American colonists must be governed, not by arbitrary laws, 

but by their interest in the British Constitution. (77) 
II. Magnanimity in dealing with the colonies is the truest wisdom. 

(79) 

III. English privileges have made America what it is ; English privi- 
leges alone will make it all it can be. (79) 



111 austerity of the Chair : the dignity and impartiality of the speaker. 
Hazlitt says that " most of Burke's speeches have a sort of parliamen- 
tary preamble ; there is an air of affected modesty and ostentatious 
trifling in them." Does the criticism apply to this speech? — 8 grand 
penal bill : this bill, which originated with Lord North, was passed by 
the House of Commons in 1775. It restricted the trade of the New 
England colonies to England and her dependencies, and practically pro- 
hibited those colonies from the use of the Newfoundland fisheries. The 
Lords returned the bill with a savage amendment making it apply to all 
the American colonies. The amendment was afterwards withdrawn. 

1219 At that period: the repeal of the Stamp Act, in 1766. The 
vote stood 275 for repeal to 161 against. Burke made a strong speech 
in favor of the repeal, he having entered Parliament the previous year. 
— 34 continual agitation: for a period of nearly one hundred years the 
affairs of the colonies had been intrusted to a standing committee 
called " The Lords of Trade." To them the colonial governors, who 
were appointed by the king, gave full accounts of the proceedings of 
the colonial legislatures. These reports, often colored by personal 
prejudice, did not always represent the colonies in the best light. It 
was mainly through the influence of one of the former Lords of Trade, 
Charles Townshend, who afterwards became the leading voice in the 
Pitt ministry, that the Stamp Act was passed. — Everything administered 
as remedy : the Tea-tax, Boston Port Bill, Massachusetts Colony Bill, 
Transportation Act, and Quebec Act. Note the "shifting experiments " 
argument in the word-expression throughout this paragraph. 

14 1 unsuspecting confidence: a term used by the Philadelphia Con- 
gress in 1774 to express the state of feeling in the colonies after the 
repeal of the Stamp Act. — 17 the project : (not to be confused with the 
" grand penal bill ") is referred to in the Introduction to this speech. 
On February 27, 1775, the House passed resolutions brought in by 
Lord North, entitled " Propositions for Conciliating the Differences 
with America," which provided that any colony which voluntarily con- 
tributed its proportionate share for the common defense and support 



BURKE 343 

of the English government, and in addition made provision for the 
support of its local government, should be exempt from taxation, 
except such as was necessary for the regulation of commerce. It has 
been declared by some that the measure was meant in good faith. 
Burke argued that the intention was to cause dissension and divi- 
sion among the colonies. (See 47 20-24.) — 18 the noble lord in the 
blue ribbon: Frederick North, Prime Minister from 1770 till 1782, and 
largely responsible for the separation of the colonies from England. 
A broad, dark blue ribbon worn across the breast is the badge of 
the famous Order of the Garter, a decoration rarely conferred upon com- 
moners, and therefore often mentioned by Burke in speaking of Lord 
North. — 20 colony agents: the colonies, not having direct representa- 
tion in Parliament, engaged agents to watch their interests there. 
Burke himself was such an agent for New York for a short time. — 
mace : the symbol of the authority of the House of Commons. When 
the ordinary call for order is ineffective to quell disturbance, the ser- 
geant-at-arms, at the speaker's direction, takes up the mace and con- 
fronts the disorderly members. There is in the speaker's power but 
one last resource more dreaded, and that is to "name" the disorderly 
member. — 31 menacing front of our address: on February 9, 1775, 
Parliament had presented an address to the king declaring that no part 
of his authority over the colonies should be relinquished. The imme- 
diate cause of this address was the Boston Tea Party. 

16 15 lay before you: transition to the next main division of the 
speech, — the Statement of Facts. 

17 9 minima: trifles. De minimis non acrat lex, the law takes no 
account of trifles. — 25 person at your bar : this was a Mr. Glover, 
esteemed a poet in his day, who presented a petition from the West 
India planters, praying that peace might be made with the American 
colonies. The "bar" is a movable rail in the main aisle, beyond which 
none but officers and members are allowed to pass. All other persons, if 
permitted to address the House, must do so standing outside this barrier. 

18 21 African: the slave trade, principally. The exports from Eng- 
land to Africa consisted almost wholly of articles used in barter for 
slaves, who were shipped thence to the colonies ; hence rightly regarded 
by Burke as a branch of England's export trade to the colonies. 

20 1(5 Lord Bathurst : born 1684 ; took his seat in Parliament in 1705 ; 
died September, 1775. His name has become a synonym for longevity. 
The argumentative value of Burke's exairsics at this point, and espe- 
cially its adaptability to the needs of a business speaker in a delib- 
erative body, may be questioned, but the attempt is carried out with 



344 NOTES 

characteristic opulence and splendor. — 18 acta parentum, etc. : to read 
about the deeds of his forefathers, and able to comprehend what virtue 
is. Adapted from Virgil, Eclogues, IV, 26. 

22 18 Roman charity : according to an old Roman story, a father 
condemned to die by starvation is visited in prison by his daughter, 
who secretly nourishes him from her own breasts. 

26 12-18 I have been told ... I hear . . . General Gage : note the 
relative value of the authorities cited, — 21 successful chicane: "Bos- 
ton held a town-meeting. Gage reminded the selectmen of the act of 
Parliament restricting town-meetings without the governor's leave. ' It 
is only an adjourned one,' said the selectmen. 'By such means,' said 
Gage, ' you may keep your meeting alive these ten years.' He brought 
the subject before the new council. 'It is a point of law,' said they, 
' and should be referred to the Crown lawyers.' " (Bancroft, IV, 49.) 
— 26 learned friend on the floor: Thurlow, the attorney-general, w^ho as 
a member of the cabinet was sitting on the lowest tier of benches. — 
33 Abeunt stadia in mores : studies become a part of character. (Ovid, 
Heroides, XV, 83.) 

30 5 abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts : by a law 
passed May 10, 1774, which vested in the Crown the selection of the 
council, or higher branch of the legislature, prohibited public meet- 
ings without the king's consent, and gave to the royal governor 
power to appoint and remove all judges. The law was practically 
ignored. 

31 7 three ways of proceeding: here is begun an argument by exclu- 
sion, or the Method of Residues. (See 37 23.) — 14 giving up the colo- 
nies : this was seriously proposed and ably defended by Dr. Tucker, 
Dean of Gloucester, on the ground that England would have the trade 
of the colonies whether she ovmed them or not, if she offered them the 
best markets. In the light of subsequent history, Tucker's argument, as 
Goldwin Smith points out, deserved more serious consideration than 
Burke accorded it. 

34 28 If then, Sir, etc. : note here, and throughout the speech, how 
the summary, and the transition to the next line of argument, aid in 
following the argument as a whole. 

35 16 Sir Edward Coke : attorney-general in 1603, when Raleigh was 
tried for treason, who assailed the defendant in most unjust and brutal 
terms: "Thou hast an Enghsh face, but a Spanish heart, and thyself 
art a spider of hell ! " 

36 3 ex vi termini : from the force of the term. 

38 25 Serbonian bog, etc. : Paradise Lost, II, 592-594. 



WEBSTER 345 

40 2 grant: voluntary contribution of the colonies. — imposition: a 
tax imposed by Parliament. — 14 temple of British concord : an allusion 
to the Temple of Concord at Rome. 

44 17 Experimentum in corpore vili : experiments should be tried on 
objects of no value. 

47 9 Treasury Extent : a summary process to recover debts due the 
Crown, differing from an ordinary writ of execution in that under it the 
body, lands, and goods of a debtor may all be seized at once. — 33 Com- 
pare the two : note the convincing force of balancing the two plans, 
(paragraph 72), by way of summary. 

48 31 Posita luditur area : the treasure-chest is staked on the game. 

50 28 For that service : begins the peroration, which, with its com- 
bined summary and appeal, its strength and passion, is in Burke's best 
style, and has long been admired as a classic model. 

This speech shared the fate of most of Burke's efforts. It com- 
manded universal admiration, but was ineffective in bringing about what 
he desired. At the conclusion of the speech, the previous question 
(which in English parliamentary practice is a back-handed method of 
tabling) was moved, and the resolutions were lost by a vote of 270 to 78. 

The speech was ineffective in Parliament for three main . reasons : 
(i) the inability of the king and the king's advisers, who based their 
policy on the eports of the colonial governors, to understand the colo- 
nists ; (2) the obstinacy, and also the political motives, of George III, 
who was impatient of any opposition to the royal prerogative, and 
W'ished to strengthen the monarchical power; and (3) Parliament was 
not a truly representative body. Out of 8,000,000 people, only 160,000 
voted at elections. Besides there were many " rotten boroughs," the 
members from which gained their seats through corruption. 

Although the battle of Lexington w'as fought within a month after 
the delivery of this speech, how history might have differed had Eng- 
land, even at the eleventh hour, followed Burke's counsels ! Says Mor- 
ley : " The war of Independence was virtually a second English civil 
war. The ruin of the American cause would have been also the ruin of 
the constitutional cause in England ; and a patriotic Englishman may 
revere the memory of Patrick Henry and George Washington not less 
justly than the patriotic American. Burke's attitude in this great con- 
test is that part of his history about the majestic and noble wisdom of 
which there can be least dispute." 

THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE — WEBSTER 

Bibliography. There are many " Lives " of Webster, that of George 
Ticknor Curtis (1870) being standard. Other biographies that may be 
mentioned are : Lodge, in American Statesman Series (1S83) ; Scudder 
(18S2); and McMaster (1902). Harvey's Reminiscences of Daniel IVeb- 
ster is a most readable book. Webster's works have been issued in 



346 NOTES 

six volumes, with a memoir by Edward Everett. A later edition (1903), 
in sixteen volumes, includes many early addresses and legal arguments 
hitherto unpublished. For the general reader the most usable edition 
of his speeches is a single volume — Webster^ s Gj^eat Speeches — with an 
introductory essay by Edwin Whipple on " Daniel Webster as a Master 
of English Style." Various magazine articles, on special topics, will be 
found listed in Poole's Index. 

Chronology of Principal Speeches. 181 8 — The Dartmouth College 
Case. 1820 — Plymouth Oration. 1824 — The Revolution in Greece; 
Argument in the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden. 1825 — First Bunker 
Hill Oration. 1826 — Oration on Adams and Jefferson. 1827 — 
Argument in the case of Ogden vs. Saunders. 1830 — Reply to Hayne ; 
Jury Address in the White Murder Case. 1832 — Oration on Washing- 
ton. 1833 — The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign 
States. 1843 — Oration on the Pilgrims; Second Bunker Hill Oration. 
1848 — Exclusion of Slavery from the Territories; Eulogy of Jeremiah 
Mason. 1849 — Eulogy of Kossuth. 1850 — The Constitution and the 
Union (the " Seventh of March " Speech). 

A cursory reading of this address will at once reveal its coherency 
and logical sequence. The argument proper is based on two main 
propositions : (i) The murder was in pursuance of a conspiracy, and the 
prisoner was one of the conspirators (paragraph 20) ; (2) the prisoner 
was present at the murder, aiding and abetting therein (paragraph 51), 
and is therefore guilty as a principal. In support of these two proposi- 
tions, the circumstantial and direct evidence is reviewed in detail, the 
inferences therefrom are deduced from time to time, followed by a gen- 
eral summary at the close (paragraph 123), the speech being concluded 
with a brief, strong appeal (paragraphs 124, 125). Let the student, if 
time permits, make a brief of the speech, following the form given in 
the notes on Burke. 

67 10 Moloch : the chief god of the Phoenicians, frequently mentioned 
in Scripture as the god of the Ammonites,whose worship consisted chiefly 
of human sacrifices. See Jeremiah xxxii. 35 ; 2 Kings xvii. 31 ; Paradise 
Lost, I, 392-398. By extension, the word means any baneful influence 
to which everything is sacrificed ; as, the guillotine was the Moloch of 
the French Revolution. — 19 spread out the whole scene before us : 
Webster gets many of these details from Joseph Knapp's previous con- 
fession. What is gained by thus detailing the horrors of the crime ? 
Mr. Lodge says that " Webster's description of the White murder, and 
of the ghastly haunting sense of guilt which pursued the assassin, has 
never been surpassed in dramatic force by any speaker, whether in 
debate or before a jury." 

71 18 "Goodridge robbery": Webster was the principal "counsel 
for the prisoner " in this case, and succeeded in unraveling a compli- 
cated set of facts, demonstrating that the accuser, one Goodridge, was 
himself the guilty party. 



WEBSTER 347 

73 5 the late Chief Justice : Judge Parker of the Supreme Court. 
A special session of this court was ordered by the legislature for the 
trial of the prisoners at Salem, in July. At that time Frank Knapp 
was indicted as principal in the murder, and George Crowninshield 
and Joseph Knapp as accessories. On account of the death of the 
Chief Justice on July 26 the court adjourned to August 3, when it 
proceeded in the trial of Frank Knapp. Hence it will be seen how 
Webster's allusion to Judge Parker added force to the refutation at 
this point. 

77 23 The letter from Palmer. . . . The fabricated letters from Knapp : 
see 86 13 to 88 13 inclusive. 

90 2 He was there : this accords with the confession of Joseph Knapp. 
See note following. 

94 1 His being there is a proof, etc. : the presence of Frank Knapp 
in Brown Street for the purpose of aiding and abetting the assassin — 
and even his presence there at the time the murder was committed — 
seems to have been the weak part of "Webster's case. The motive of 
curiosity, which Webster calls " absurd," was, if Joseph Knapp's con- 
fession is to be credited, the true explanation. He said that Crownin- 
shield and Frank Knapp met about ten o'clock in the evening, in Brown 
Street, and stood some time in a spot from which they could observe 
the movements in the house ; that Crowninshield, w^hen he started to 
commit the murder, requested Frank to go home ; that Frank did go 
home, retired to bed, but soon after arose and secretly left his father's 
house ; and that when Crowninshield came from Mr. White's house he 
met Frank in Brown Street, waiting to learn the event. 

100 15 made more impression on the minds of the court than on my 
own mind : this suggests an oft-told incident in the celebrated Smith 
Will trial, when the opposing counsel, Mr. Choate, quoted a decision of 
Lord Chancellor Camden. In his reply Webster argued against its 
validity as though it were a proposition laid down by Mr. Choate. "But 
it is not mine, it is Lord Camden's," was the instant retort. Webster 
paused for half a minute, and then, with his eye fixed on the presiding 
judge, he replied, "Lord Camden was a great judge, . . . but, may it 
please your honor, / differ from my Lord Camden." " There was 
hardly a lawyer in the United States who could have made such a 
statement w'ithout exposing himself to ridicule, but it did not seem at 
all ridiculous when the / stood for Daniel Webster." 

103 29 Another Lear, etc. : Webster's handUng of the father's testi- 
mony is worthy of note. The masterful advocate learns to avoid 
bristling at all opposing testimony. 



348 ' NOTES 

107 32 a Hale or a Mansfield: Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676), a cele- 
brated English jurist ; William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, Chief Justice 
of the King's Bench, 17 56-1 788, who has been called " the founder of 
English commercial law." 

110 27 rope-walk: a long covered walk. 

116 10 putting these considerations together: note the general sum- 
mary of the argument up to this point. 

118 10 The general rule of law: at common law confessions made 
to clergymen or physicians, in their professional capacity, were not 
"privileged communications," and hence were admissible as evidence. 
In some of the states such communications are privileged by statute. 

127 30 do your duty, etc. : though worn threadbare in declamation 
service, this eloquent peroration may well be carefully studied for those 
merits alluded to in the Introduction. The simplicity of diction is not 
'more notable than the self-restraint and poise. There is no violent 
denunciation of the prisoner, no effort to confuse or mislead, or to 
sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. " It is for the jury to say 
under their oaths " is an ever-recurring phrase in all of Webster's jury 
addresses. The result was that he appeared not so much as the mere 
partisan advocate bearing down upon the jurymen with his argument, 
but rather as a "thirteenth juryman," who continued to argue the case 
with them after they had retired for consultation among themselves. 



A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT 
STAND — LINCOLN 

Bibliography . The standard work on Lincoln and his times is that 
of Nicolay and Hay, in ten volumes, — Abi'ahani Lincoln: A History. 
Other biographies have been written by Herndon and Weik, Lamon, 
Ida M. Tarbell, Noah Brooks, Arnold, Raymond, Hapgood, Morse (in 
American Statesman Series), and W. E. Curtis, respectively. The 
Century Company publish the complete works of Lincoln. Other help- 
ful authorities are: Qx2S\.\., Memoirs; Greeley, The American Conflict; 
A. H. Stephens, History of the War betzaeen the States; and Blaine, 
Tzuenty Years of Congress. Mr. A. S. Boyd has a full bibliography in 
the " Lincoln Memorial " volume. 

Chronology of Principal Speeches and Papers. 1832 — Address to the 
People of Sangamon County. 1837 — The Perpetuation of our Political 
Institutions : An Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Spring- 
field, Illinois. 1852 — Eulogy of Henry Clay. 1854 — Origin of the 
Wilmot Proviso. 1857 — Discussion of the Dred Scott case. 1858 
— The "Divided House" Speech; and the seven joint Debates with 
Douglas. 1859 — Speeches at Columbus and Cincinnati, i860 — Cooper 



LINCOLN 



349 



Institute Speech. 1861 — First Inaugural Address. 1863 — Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation and the Gettysburg Address. 

(In the following notes no attempt is made to explain many of the 
historical allusions. Such topics as the Nebraska Bill, the Ured Scott 
case, etc., may be reviewed, when necessary, in any standard American 
history.) 

First note the argumentative structure of this speech as a whole, its 
organization and orderly development. The argument is largely induc- 
tive, — the conclusions not being stated until after adducing the proof 
to sustain them. Let the student make a brief of the speech, putting 
the conclusions first, that is, in deductive form. 

133 2 If we could first know where we are, etc. : compare with Web- 
ster's opening in his Reply to Hayne. — 11 half slave and half free : the 
same idea found expression in the Richmond Enquirer, May 6, 1856, 
quoted by Von Hoist, VI, 299, also referred to by Lincoln. On October 
25, 1858, Seward made the speech at Rochester, New York, which con- 
tained the famous sentence : " It is an irrepressible conflict between 
opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States 
must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding 
nation or entirely a free-labor nation." 

134 8 Congressional prohibition: the Missouri Compromise. — 31 "let 
us amend the bill " : the amendment w^as offered by Senator Salmon P. 
Chase. This question continued to be a bone of contention in the 
Lincoln-Douglas debates. In his speech at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, 
Douglas replied to Lincoln on this point as follows: " Chase offered a 
proviso that they might abolish slavery, which by implication would 
convey the idea that they could prohibit by not introducing that insti- 
tution. General Cass asked him to modify his amendment so as to 
provide that the people might either prohibit or introduce slavery, and 
thus make it fair and equal. Chase refused to so modify his proviso, 
and then General Cass and all the rest of us voted it down." 

135 21 The outgoing President: Franklin Pierce. — 33 The reputed 
author of the Nebraska bill: in the first joint debate at Ottawa, Douglas 
says that he introduced the bill. 

136 2 the Silliman letter : a letter addressed to President Buchanan by 
the " electors of the State of Connecticut " in regard to the situation 
in Kansas. In reply, the President made the following reference to the 
Dred Scott case : " Slavery existed at that period [when Kansas was 
organized as a territory] and still exists in Kansas, under the Consti- 
tution of the United States. This point has at last been finally decided 
by the highest tribunal known to our laws. How it could ever have 
been seriously doubted is a mystery." — 8 Lecompton Constitution: formed 



350 * NOTES 

by the proslavery men of Kansas in 1857, the antislavery men having 
withdrawn from the Convention because of alleged frauds in the selec- 
tion of delegates by the opposition. Douglas believed that there was 
not a "fair vote," and so opposed the adoption of the Constitution by 
Congress. For this stand he seems to have deserved more credit than 
Lincoln here gives him. 

138 10 the niche for the Dred Scott decision: " It was popularly believed 
that the whole case was made up in order to afford an opportunity for 
the political opinions delivered by the Court. This w^as an extreme view 
not justified by the facts. But in the judgment of many conservative 
men there was a delay in rendering the decision which had its origin 
in motives that should not have influenced a judicial tribunal. . . . Mr. 
Buchanan imprudently announced in his Inaugural Address that ' the 
point of time when the people of a Territory can decide the ques- 
tion of slavery for themselves will be speedily and finally settled by 
the Supreme Court.'" (Blaine Twenty Years of Congress, I, 132.) — 34 
Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James : Senator Stephen A. Douglas, 
ex-President Franklin Pierce, Chief-Justice Roger B. Taney, and Presi- 
dent James Buchanan. 

139 21 McLean . . . Curtis: Associate Justices of the Supreme 
Court who dissented from the majority opinion. — 29 Nelson: another 
Associate Justice, who concurred with the majority on the main issues, 
but made a separate statement of some points. 

140 27 quarrel: see 136 8, note. Douglas's stand in opposing the 
Lecompton Constitution led many of the more conservative Republi- 
cans, notably Horace Greeley and Schuyler Colfax, openly or secretly 
to favor his election over Lincoln. — 31 "A living dog," etc.: Ecclesi- 
astes ix. 4. 

THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC — PHILLIPS 

Bibliography. Two biographies of Phillips have appeared, neither of 
them final books : Austin's Life and Times of Wendell Phillips, and 
Martyn's Wendell Phillips, the Agitator (American Reformer Series). 
His Lectures and Addresses have been published in tw^o volumes. An 
excellent article on Phillips will be found in the Natioji, XXXVIII, 1 16, 
and other articles will be found cited in Poole's Index. 

Chrojiology of Principal Speeches and Orations. 1837 — Speech on the 
Murder of Lovejoy. 1838-1839 — The Lost Arts. 1840 — Cotton, the 
Corner Stone of Slavery. 1851 — Woman's Rights ; Eulogy of Kossuth. 
1852 — Public Opinion. 1853 — Philosophy of the Abolition Movement. 
1855 — ^^^ Boston Mob; Capital Punishment. 1859 — Lecture on 
Idols ; Harper's Ferry ; the Puritan Principle and John Brown ; The 



PHILLIPS 351 

Education of the People, i860 — Lincoln's Election; Mobs and Edu- 
cation; The Pulpit. 1861 — Disunion; Progress; Under the Flag; The 
War for the Union ; Toussaint L'Ouverture ; Suffrage for Woman. 1863 

— The State of the Country. 1865 — The Maine Liquor Law; The 
Assassination of Lincoln. 1869 — Christianity a Battle, not a Dream. 
1871 — The Foundation of the Labor Movement. 1872 — The Labor 
Question. 1875 — Eulogy of Daniel O'Connell. 1879 — Eulogy of 
William Lloyd Garrison. 1881 — The Scholar in a Republic. 

159 1 4> B K (Phi Beta Kappa) : a literary society established in sev- 
eral American colleges, to v^-hich students of high scholarship are ad- 
mitted. It was founded as a literary and debating society at William 
and Mary College, Virginia, in 1776. Its original purpose was the 
encouragement of patriotism and scholarship. The Harvard Chapter 
has enjoyed a particularly successful career, Phi Beta Kappa Day being 
the greatest public literary day of the college year. 

160 8 Roger Williams (1600-1684) : the founder of Rhode Island, 
and apostle of religious toleration in New England. — Sir Harry Vane 
(161 2-1662) : an English Puritan, statesman, and patriot. Governor of 
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, failing of reelection on account of 
siding with Anne Hutchinson. — 21 Fenelon (1651-1715): a celebrated 
French prelate, author, and orator. — 22 Somers (1652-1716): an Eng- 
lish statesman and jurist. — John Marshall (1755-1835) : Chief Justice 
of the United States Supreme Court, 1801-1835. — Carnot (1801-1888) : 
a French politician and publicist. 

161 8 Charles Chauncey (i 592-1672) : the second president of Har- 
vard College. As a preacher in England, he came into frequent con- 
flict with the ecclesiastical authorities on account of his liberal views. — 
Brattle Street Church protest : a manifesto issued in 1699 by the founders 
of this church in Boston, declaring in favor of a more liberal creed than 
the Congregational organization had previously adopted. 

162 2i) One such journal nightmares New England annals : nightmare 
as a verb is unusual. The journal referred to is probably that of John 
Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was published 
by James Savage as a History of N'ew England, i6jo-i64g. 

165 8 Wycliffe (1324-1384): a celebrated English religious reformer, 
called "the morning star of the Reformation." 

166 20 Lord Brougham (1778-1S68) : an English lawyer, statesman, 
and reformer. — 21 Romilly (1757-1818) : an English lawyer and phil- 
anthropist, famous from his labors for the reform of the criminal law. 

167 18 Selden (i 584-1 654) : an eminent English jurist and author. 

— 33 Melanchthon (1497-1560): a German reformer, famous as the 
collaborator of Luther. 



352 NOTES 

168 2 Erasmus (1465-1536): a famous Dutch theologian and clas- 
sical scholar. He aimed to reform without dismembering the Roman 
Catholic Church, and at first favored, but subsequently opposed, the 
Reformation. — 5 college-graduate . . . against Lincoln: see 198 8-13. 
Compare Curtis's oration on " The Leadership of Educated Men." In 
this oration Curtis said : " A year ago I sat with my brethren of the 
Phi Beta Kappa at Cambridge, and seemed to catch echoes of Edmund 
Burke's resounding impeachment of Warren Hastings in the sparkling 
denunciation of the timidity of American scholarship. . . . But the 
scholarly audience of the scholarly orator, with an exquisite sense of 
relief, felt every count of his stinging indictment recoil upon Tiimself." 
{Orations and Addresses, I, 320.) — 21 Professor Peirce : both he and his 
father have held the chair of Mathematics and Astronomy at Harvard. — 
28 Scire ubi aliquid, etc. : a large part of education is to know where you 
may find anything. Note the thought-echo from the preceding paragraph. 

169 18 Niebuhr (1776-1831): a celebrated German historian, philol- 
ogist, and critic. His principal work was his Roman History, in three 
volumes. 

173 18 triple crown (or tiara) : worn by the pope as a symbol of his 
threefold sovereignty. — 25 Credit Mobilier: a corporation chartered in 
Pennsylvania in 1863, named after a banking corporation in France. It 
developed into a company for building the Union Pacific Railroad. In 
1872 it was found that certain congressmen secretly possessed stock in 
the company. — 28 The railway king: William K. Vanderbilt. 

176 2 Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850): a noted English statesman, for 
some time Prime Minister. He first opposed, and later favored, Catho- 
lic emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws. — 12 Disraeli : Earl of 
Beaconsfield (i 804-1 881) : an English statesman and novehst ; for some 
time Prime Minister. — 18 Wilberforce (1759-1833) = ^n English philan- 
thropist, statesman, and orator; famous as an opponent of the slave 
trade. — Clarkson (i 760-1846): an English abolitionist. — 19 Rowland 
Hill (i 744-1 833) : an English preacher and dissenter. 

178 7 Rantoul (1805-1852): an American politician, lawyer, and re- 
former ; an opponent of slavery. In his lecture on " Idols," Phillips pays 
him an eloquent tribute {First Series, 254). — 8 Beccaria (Bek-ka-re-a) 
(1738-1794) : anitalianeconomist, jurist, and philanthropist. One of the 
earliest opponents of the death penalty. — Livingston : the reference is 
probably to Edward Livingston (1764-1836), an American jurist and 
statesman, who prepared a code of criminal law and procedure. — 
Mackintosh (1765-1832) : a Scottish philosopher and lawyer. — 10 single 
exception : Horace Mann is probably meant. 



CURTIS 353 

180 26 Crillon (1541-1615) : a celebrated French general, also called 
'■'■ U Hojnnie sans peiir,''^ — the fearless. 

182 15 righteous and honorable resistance: of Phillips's plea for nihil- 
ism Colonel Higginson writes : " Many a respectable lawyer or divine felt 
his blood run cold the next day when he found that the fascinating 
orator whom he applauded to the echo had really made the assassina- 
tion of an emperor seem as trivial as the doom of a mosquito." Recent 
developments in Russia, however, lend new interest to Phillips's point 
of view. 

183 14 Lieber (i 800-1872) : a German- American publicist. 

184 10 Macchiavelli (1469-1527) : a celebrated Italian statesman and 
author, — 13 Faneuil Hall (fun'el or fan'Tl) : a market-house in Boston, 
containing a hall for public assemblies. It was built in 1743 by Peter 
Faneuil, an American merchant. It was the meeting place of American 
patriots in the Revolutionary period, and is therefore called " The 
Cradle of Liberty." — 33 Pecksniff: a notorious hypocrite in Dickens's 
Alar tin Chnzzlezvit. 

185 24 Beckford (i 759-1844) : an English man of letters, connoisseur, 
and collector ; best known as the author of Vathek, an Eastern romance. 

186 18 Richter, "Jean Paul" (1763-1825): a celebrated German 
humorist. 



THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN — CURTIS 

Bibliography. Curtis's orations, lectures, and speeches have been 
published in three volumes, — Orations and Addresses. Edward Cary, 
in the American Men of Letters Series, treats of his career in a some- 
what rambling fashion. An address by Parke Godwin, contained in his 
Commemorative Addresses^ is the tribute of a life-long friend. An appre- 
ciative article entitled " George William Curtis : Friend of the Repub- 
lic," by Carl Schurz, appeared in McChire's Magazine for October, 1904, 
and various articles on Curtis will be found in magazines soon after the 
date of his death ; see Poole's Index. 

Ckro/iology of More Notable Orations and Lectures. 1856 — The Duty 
of the American Scholar to Politics and the Times. 1859 — The Present 
Aspects of the Slavery Question. 1862 — The American Doctrine of 
Liberty. 1865-1866 — The Good Fight (a lecture). 1869 — Civil vService 
Reform. 1870 — Fair Play for Women. 1874 — Eulogy of Charles 
Sumner. 1875 — Oration at the Centennial Celebration of Concord 
Fight. 1877 — The Public Duty of Educated Men. 1880 — Eulogy of 
Robert Burns. 1882 — The Leadership of Educated Men. 1S84 — 
Eulogy of Wendell Phillips. 1885 — The Puritan Spirit. 1888— The 
Reason and the Result of Civil Service Reform. 1890 — The Higher 
Education of Women. 1892 — Eulogy of James Russell Lowell, 



354 NOTES 

This oration is so clear and simple in its plan and development that 
the student may easily and profitably write an outline of it, employing 
the usual threefold division of Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion. 
On analysis, it will be found that the thought as a whole revolves 
around two main propositions: (i) An active interest and practical par- 
ticipation in politics is the duty of educated men ; (2) in the performance 
of this duty, party loyalty should be made subservient to conscience 
and patriotism. Having narrowed his general subject to a more definite 
one, Curtis develops his theme by a varied repetition and reenforcement 
of the two foregoing propositions. He does not deal in " glittering gen- 
eraUties," but in clear, plain specifications. He evidently did not con- 
sider that a scholarly address is measured by the number of ideas 
suggested, but rather by one or two central ideas lodged in the minds of 
the hearers. The logical development of the theme, the natural and 
easy transitions, the paragraph and sentence structure, the pure and force- 
ful diction, and the distinctively oratorical qualities of recapitulation, 
direct address, figures of speech, and climaxes, — will of course be seen 
and appreciated more fully than could be pointed out in these notes. 

192 2 the music of these younger voices : what characteristic of a 
good Introduction ? Point out other instances in the first two para- 
graphs. 

194 11 venerated teacher: Dr. Tayler Lewis, for thirty-eight years 
Professor of Greek at Union College. He died a short time prior to the 
delivery of this oration. The " clear voice of patriotic warning " refers 
to his work. States Rights a Photograph 0/ the Ruins of Ancient Greece, 
published in 1864. 

195 3 By the words " public duty," etc. : note the method of reaching 
a definition, — negation and antithesis, linked to the theme of the dis- 
course as a whole, 

196 4 Jeremy Diddler : a character in Kenney's farce, Raising the 
Wind. He is a clever vagabond and artful swindler. — Dick Turpin : a 
notorious English highwayman, executed in 1739. — 9 Jonathan Wild : 
an English robber and receiver of stolen goods, hanged in 1725. The 
allusion is to William M. Tweed who, as head of the " Tweed Ring," 
robbed New York City of millions of dollars. He was arrested in 1871, 
tried, and convicted. He died in Ludlow Street jail in 1878. 

197 27 Agamemnon : in Greek legendary history, the king of Mycenae, 
the most powerful ruler in Greece. Homer calls him " the king of men." 

198 26 Faneuil Hall: see 184 13, note. 

201 3, 7 a rat and a renegade ... a popinjay and a visionary fool : what 
power over words is shown in these expressions? — 33 Golden Age: 
this same idea is amplified in the Concord oration. 

202 7 Jacobins : a society of French revolutionists organized in 1789, 
and so-called from the Jacobin convent in Paris, in' which they met. 



GRADY 355 

The violent members, led by Robespierre and Marat, eventually gained 
control, and the club supported them in measures that led to the Reign 
of Terror. — 24 Castor and Pollux: in Greek and Roman mythology, 
twin brothers who were placed in the heavens as a constellation called 
the Gemini, or Twins. 

203 30 The ordeal of last winter: the contested presidential election 
of 1876, when Hayes was finally declared elected by a Commission 
created by an act of Congress. The gravity of the situation is not 
exaggerated by Curtis. On December 22, 1876, he made a speech on 
" The Puritan Principle : Liberty under the Law," at the annual dinner 
of the New England Society, New York, advocating a non-partisan settle- 
ment of the dispute. In this speech, says Edward Everett Hale, who 
was present, "Curtis spoke the word which was most needed to save 
the country from terrible calamity." 

205 13 Captain Kidd : a notorious pirate who was hanged in London 
in 1 701. — 21 nasty: what is gained by the repetition of this word.'' 

207 22 every sign encourages and inspires : why is a forward-looking 
Conclusion appropriate ? 

208 10 Such was the folly, etc. : note how the antithesis is main- 
tained. 

209 13 Bolingbroke (i 678-1 751) : an English statesman and political 
writer. He wrote, among other things, Idea of a Patriot King. — 
14 patriot president : note how skillfully a general summary and an 
appeal are combined; the "patriot president" is confronted with the 
same problems, and to him is ascribed the same virtues, that Curtis 
has throughout the oration expounded and urged. 



THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH — GRADY 

Bibliog7'aphy. Two collections of Grady's works have been published. 
The better, though incomplete, edition is edited by Joel Chandler 
Harris: Henry IV. Grady, His Life, Writings, and Speeches (1890). 
Another edition is the Life and Labors of Heftry W. Grady. Four 
of his orations have been edited by Edna H. L. Turpin, in Maynard's 
English Classics Series. Articles on Grady by his associate editor on 
the Constitution, Mr. Clark Howell, will be found in the C/iantauquan, 
XXI, 703, and in the Arena, II, 9. For other magazine articles, consult 
Poole's Index. 

Chronology of Published Speeches and Orations. 1886 — The New 
South. 1887 — The South and Her Problems; The "Solid South"; 
Prohibition in Atlanta. 1889 — Against Centralization ; The Farmer and 
the Cities ; The Race Problem in the South ; Speech before the Bay 
State Club, Boston. 



356 NOTES 

215 8 Happy am I that this mission, etc. : note the skillful transition. 
— 28 I spoke some words, etc. : the speech on the " New South," referred 
to in the Introduction to the speech in this volume. 

216 16 the fairest and richest domain of this earth, etc.: Mr. Marion 
J. Verdrey says, " Grady could invest the most trifling thing with pro- 
portions of importance not at all its own. He could transform a homely 
thought into an expression of beauty beneath his wondrous touch." 
Find examples here and elsewhere in this speech. 

217 14 El Dorado: a fabulous region of South America, abounding in 
gold and gems. By extension, any country rich in natural resources. 

2211 The President: Benjamin Harrison. — 22 enormous crop: the 
cotton crop of 1905 was over 12,000,000 bales. 

224 15 Regulators : members of unauthorized associations formed 
for carrying out a rough substitute for justice in the case of heinous or 
notorious crimes. 

227 23 "forty acres and a mule": at the close of the war the negro 
vote was solicited by the " carpet-baggers," who quoted Lincoln as say- 
ing that if the Republican party were kept in power, each negro should 
have "forty acres and a mule." 

228 9 as Elisha rose, etc. : 2 Kings ii. 9-1 2. — 24 force bills : the semi- 
military government during the Reconstruction period. A proposed 
" Federal election law " was pending before Congress at the time this 
speech was delivered. This " Force Bill " provided that Federal troops 
might be used to prevent the intimidation of negroes at the polls. The 
bill was so palpably a partisan measure that the opposition to it was 
largely responsible for the election of Mr. Cleveland as President for a 
second term. 

23115 Cyrenian : Luke xxiii. 26. — 18 "And suddenly Ethiopia," etc. : 
Psalms Ixviii. 31. 

232 1 Hamilcar : the famous Carthaginian general (third century B.C.) 
who made his young son Hannibal swear eternal hostility to Rome. 

Queries. Is this speech logical as a whole ? Considered as an argu- 
ment, what is the main issue ? Is any solution of the race problem 
offered ? Is the speech, as a whole, primarily an argument or a plea ? 

THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER — WATTERSON 

Mr. Watterson's publications are mentioned in the Introduction. 
One or two magazine articles on phases of his life and work will be 
found cited in Poole's Index. 

Chronology of Principal Addresses. 1 870 - — Eulogy of George Denni- 
son Prentice. 1873 — '^^^ American Newspaper. 1874 — A Plea for 



DANIEL 357 

Provincialism. 1877 — The South in Light and Shade (a lecture) ; The 
Nation's Dead; The Electoral Commission Bill. 1883 — The New 
South. i888 — Money and Morals (a lecture). 1891 — Let Us have 
Peace. 1892 — Our Expanding Republic (at the World's Fair, Chicago). 
1894 — Compromises of Life (a lecture). 1895 — Abraham Lincoln (a 
lecture) ; a Welcome to the Grand Army. 1896 — England and America. 
1897 — The Puritan and the Cavalier. 1898 — The Reunited Sections ; 
Eulogy of Francis Scott Key. 1899 — God's Promise Redeemed. 1901 

— The Man in Gray; Reciprocity and Expansion. 1902 — Eulogy of 
John Paul Jones; Heroes in Homespun. 1903 — The Hampton Roads 
Conference ; The Ideal in Public Life ; Blood Thicker than Water. 
1906 — Speech of Welcome, Old Home Week, at Louisville, Kentucky. 

237 1 Eleven years ago ... a young Georgian, etc. : Grady in his " New 
South" speech, 1886. — 31 ate no fire in the green leaf, etc.: compare 
Luke xxiii. 31. 

238 4 " A plague 0' both your houses " : Rofneo and Juliet, III, i. 

239 13 The ambassador : James B. Eustis, of Louisiana. — 20 Custer : a 
Union officer in the Civil War ; Rupert : fought in the English Civil War 
against Cromwell. — 26 Ethan Allen . . . John Stark . . . Wayne . . .Putnam. . . 
Buffalo Bill : all from the North, but possessing Cavalier characteristics. 

240 5 Scarlet Woman: a common designation of the Church of 
Rome, symbolizing its vices and corruption. — mailed hand : military rule. 

— 21 Cavalier sprays and Puritan branches : on his father's side, Lincoln 
w^as descended from a Quaker family, of English origin, residing in the 
middle of the eighteenth century in Berks County, Pennsylvania. His 
mother, Nancy Hanks, belonged to a Virginia family. — 34 this noble 
city . . . redeemed from bondage : the anti-Tammany rule of Mayor Low. 

241 4 Smithfield: formerly a recreation ground in London, north of 
St. Paul's. It was noted in the time of Queen Mary as the place for 
burning heretics at the stake. — 9 Hester Prynne : the principal charac- 
ter of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. — 13 Endicott: governor of Massa- 
chusetts Colony 1 649-1 665 ; a zealous Puritan and persecutor of the 
Quakers, four of whom were executed under his administration. — 
14 Winthrop : predecessor of Endicott as governor of Massachusetts. 
He opposed Vane, Anne Hutchinson, and the Antinomians. (See 160 8 
and 162 29, notes.) — 27 Cotton Mather ( 1663-17 28) : took an active 
part in the persecutions for witchcraft. 

EULOGY OF ROBERT E. LEE — DANIEL 

Mr. Daniel's speeches and orations have not as yet been put into 
permanent form. The occasion of the oration in this volume, with a 
historical sketch of the Lee Memorial Association, is described in a 
pamphlet published by Washington and Lee University, 1883. 



358 NOTES 

244 7 Arlington : during the Civil War the property was seized by 
the government, for which compensation has since been made to Lee's 
heirs. The estate is now the site of a national cemetery — one of the 
largest and most beautiful in the United States. The old Lee mansion, 
with its stately portico, is a fine specimen of colonial architecture. — 
28 fierce love of liberty: see 28 7, where Burke speaks of the "fierce 
spirit of liberty" in the colonies. In a minor argument (omitted from 
the text of this volume) Burke contends that the spirit of liberty is the 
more "high and haughty" in Virginia and the Carolinas because of 
slavery. With the Southern colonists, he says, "freedom is not only 
an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege." 

245 5 Home: anticipatory of 251 11-24. 

248 25 Francis Preston Blair : bom in Virginia, but an active Union 
man. The Hampton Roads Peace Conference of February 3, 1865, was 
a result of his labors. 

253 29 Islands of the Blest: also called the Fortunate or Happy 
Islands. They were originally imaginary isles in the western ocean 
where the souls of the good are made happy. With the discovery of 
the Canary and Madeira islands the name became attached to them. 

255 25 " On this green bank," etc. : inexactly quoted from Emerson's 
hymn at the dedication of the Concord Monument. — 31 Valentine: a 
distinguished Virginian sculptor. — 33 "Joyous Gard": "La Joyeuse 
Garde," in mediaeval romance, was the castle of Lancelot of the Lake, 
given him by Arthur for his defense of the queen's honor. 

EULOGY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT — PORTER 

Bibliography. Some of the best of General Porter's numerous after- 
dinner speeches are contained in Reed's Modern Eloquence, III, 897-943 
inclusive, and articles on and by him will be found in the files of the 
magazines and reviews. General Porter is the author of Campaigning 
with Grant and West Point Life. 

Besides the oration in this volume, his other notable orations and 
speeches have been : as orator at the inauguration of the Washington 
Arch, New York, May 4, 1895; at the dedication of Grant's Tomb, 
New York, April 27, 1897 ; at the inauguration of the Rochambeau 
Statue, Washington, May 24, 1902; and at the centennial of the 
foundation of the West Point Military Academy, June 11, 1902. 

The speech may well be viewed as a model of the briefer form of eulogy. 
Senator Daniel's oration is an example of the more formal and elabor- 
ate eulogy, his address as a whole (which is here considerably abridged 
from the original text) being an exhaustive biographical review of Lee's 
life, with a sort of running commentary thereon. General Porter, it will 
be seen, eliminates the biographical method altogether, and confines 



PORTER 359 

himself to the lessons of Grant's life. The main facts of his life are 
incidentally alluded to, by way of illustration, but the theme is. What 
were the qualities which made Grant a great man ? By way of intro- 
duction, the speaker presents for consideration the fact that Grant's 
life is unique in its striking contrasts (paragraph 2) ; then considers his 
soldierly qualities (paragraphs 3 and 4) ; then his loyalty (paragraph 5) ; 
he next shows that it required great emergencies to call forth his powers 
(paragraph 6) ; then follows a summarizing eulogy, with the equestrian 
statue as a text (paragraph 7) ; and the Conclusion shows the devotion 
of the old soldiers by an incident of their General's last sickness. Thus 
are the really essential facts of Grant's life woven into the fabric of the 
speech with consummate skill, yet all the while the warp of the thought- 
fabric is the aforementioned theme. 

259 9 the heavy columns in the center : an allusion to the large col- 
umns in the room in which he was speaking. — 18 the tragedy on Mount 
McGregor : on June 16, 1885, Grant was taken to the Joseph W. Drexel 
cottage at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, New York, as to a sana- 
torium, and died there on July 23. — 31 striding through the palaces of 
the Old World, etc. : after retiring from the presidency, General Grant 
made a tour around the world, and was received at foreign courts with 
honors reserved for sovereigns. Note how well the antithetical sen- 
tences correspond to the central thought. 

261 9 " Let us have peace " : Grant made use of this famous phrase 
in his letter of acceptance of his first nomination for the presidency 
(May 20, 1868). — 12 Gobelin tapestries: the Gobelins were a family of 
dyers, who introduced the manufacture of tapestries in the fifteenth 
century, at Paris. Their manufactory was changed to a royal establish- 
ment under Louis XTV, about 1667. — 22 this trait ... led him to 
make mistakes : the allusion is to Grant's career as President, which, in 
the common judgment, cannot be said to have been brilliant. He had 
a soldier's directness and honesty, while to political arts and chicanery 
he was a stranger. He strove to put the civil service on a meritorious 
basis, but the politicians would not sustain him, and he abandoned the 
effort. During his second term there were many frauds perpetrated on 
the government, and his Secretary of War resigned to escape impeach- 
ment for peculation. But no one believed the President in any way 
implicated in these dishonest schemes. It was felt that his own trust- 
fulness and loyalty to men in whom he confided made him an easier 
victim of artful and unscrupulous schemers. 

262 3 variableness, nor shadow of turning: see James i. 17. — 4 the 
toga of Nessus : Nessus, in Greek legend, was a centaur slain by Her- 
cules. He attempted to run away with the latter's wife, Dejanira, but 
was shot by Hercules with a poisoned arrow. Nessus, in revenge, gave 



360 NOTES 

Dejanira his tunic, declaring that the one to whom she gave it would 
love her exclusively. Dejanira gave it to her husband, who was de- 
voured by poison as soon as he put it on ; the garment clung to his 
flesh, which was torn off with it. Query. Is the simile an apt one ? — 
22 State paper: a message by President Grant accompanying his veto 
of the so-called " Inflation Bill." This bill, passed by Congress in 1874, 
provided for an increase of the currency of the country. — 26 Alabama 
claims: see 308 24, note. — 27 the miscreants who robbed him in Wall 
Street : after returning from his trip around the world, Grant, finding 
his income insufiicient for his family's support, became, a partner in a 
banking house bearing the name of Grant and Ward. He took no part 
in the management. In May, 1884, the firm, without warning, suspended. 
It was found that two of the partners had been practicing a series of 
unblushing frauds, and had robbed Grant and his family of all they 
possessed. 

263 6 that magnificent tribute, etc. : an equestrian bronze statue, 
surmounted upon a granite base, in Lincoln Park, Chicago. — 21 an 
indescribably touching incident : why is the incident described a fitting 
Conclusion ? Compare Blaine's oft-quoted Conclusion, in his eulogy 
of Garfield. 

THE IMMORTALITY OF GOOD DEEDS — REED 

No life of Reed, or collection of his speeches, has as yet been pub- 
lished. His speeches were for the most part on political questions, 
delivered in Congress and during political campaigns. During his later 
life Mr. Reed wrote frequently for the leading reviews, usually on polit- 
ical subjects, and published Reed's Rules. Magazine articles on and 
by him may be found by consulting Poole's Index. 

In the study of this oration, the student should note first the wisdom 
shown in the choice of a subject. Mr. Reed took a single, definite 
theme — which might otherwise be called a " Noble Use of Wealth " — 
as a moral to be drawn from Girard's life, and did not dissipate the force 
of a single impression by including such topics as the Life of Girard, 
the History of Girard College, etc. ; these are alluded to, but only so 
far as they aid in enforcing the main line of thought. 

The following outline facts regarding Girard's life and Girard Col- 
lege will assist in understanding many of the allusions in the address 
as a whole. 

Stephen Girard was born May 24, 1750, at Bordeaux, France. 
When eight years old he met with an accident by which the sight of 
his right eye was destroyed. At the age of thirteen, following the 
custom of the Girard family generally, he commenced life as a sailor, 
and was so assiduous and successful that he became master and cap- 
tain of a vessel at the early age of twenty-three. His first mercantile 



REED 361 

venture was to Santo Domingo in 1774, whence he proceeded to the then 
colony of New York. After trading with marked success for two years 
between New York, Port au Prince, and New Orleans, he went to 
Philadelphia in May, 1776, and gave up the sea for a mercantile career, 
though he continued in the shipping business. 

In 1793, while he was engaged most successfully in the prosecution 
of an extensive trade, an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Phila- 
delphia, sweeping away one sixth of its population. A reign of terror, 
suffering, and desolation prevailed throughout the city. When, during 
its height, a hospital was established, for which it seemed almost im- 
possible to secure competent management, Girard devoted himself per- 
sonally, fearless of all risks, to the care of the sick and the burial of. 
the dead, not only in the hospital, of which he became manager, but 
throughout the city, supplying the poorer sufferers with money and 
provisions. Two hundred children, made orphans by the ravages of 
the fever, were in a great measure thrown upon his care. From this 
period his success, commercially and financially, was unexampled. He 
gave a portion of his time to the management of municipal affairs for 
several years, and served as director of many public institutions. On 
the dissolution of the Bank of the United States he instituted what is 
known now as the Girard Bank. During the War of 181 2 he rendered 
valuable services to the government by placing at its disposal the re- 
sources of his bank, subscribing to a large loan which the government 
had vainly sought to obtain. 

Mr. Girard was married in 1777 to Mary, or '"Polly," Lum, the 
daughter of a Philadelphia shipbuilder. She was distinguished for her 
personal beauty and her noble virtues. About three years after the 
marriage she became insane, and was placed in the Pennsylvania Hos- 
pital. There she gave birth to a child, which died in a few months. 
Mrs. Girard remained an inmate of the hospital for twenty-five years, 
and died there in 181 5. 

Mr. Girard was a man with a strong will and indomitable energy, 
somewhat eccentric, but a man " whose word was as good as his bond." 
" By residence he belonged to Philadelphia, by faith to the Roman 
Catholic Church ; but in a truer, wider sense he belonged to no city, to 
no sect, but to the people, to the cause of the greatest good for all men. 
. . . Poor, struggling, full of ambition, full of hope in his youth; active, 
determined, enterprising, and charitable in the prime of life ; mourned 
and regretted in his death, — such was the life of the most eminent 
philanthropist of his time." He died December 26, 1831, leaving a 
fortune of about seven and a half millions of dollars, he being the first 
millionaire that this country had produced. 

Girard College was founded by him for the education and support 
of the poor white orphans of his adopted city. After various specific 
annuities and bequests to relatives, charities, and the city of Philadel- 
phia, he bequeathed the residue of his estate to the city of Philadelphia 
for the founding and maintenance of the college. In his will the most 
minute directions are given in regard to the buildings to be erected, 
and the admission and management of the students. He specifically 
requires that the orphans be instructed in the purest principles of mo- 
rality ; that there be formed and fostered in their minds an attachment 



362 NOTES 

to our republican institutions; and that "no ecclesiastic, missionary, 
or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any 
station or duty in said college ; nor shall any such person ever be ad- 
mitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated 
to the purposes of said college." This last-named provision gave rise 
to the famous Girard Will contest, instituted by the heirs-at-law in 1836, 
and argued in 1844 before the United States Supreme Court by Daniel 
Webster as leading counsel for the contestants. Webster knew that he 
had a weak case in point of law, so he w^ent boldly outside the law and 
made "an impassioned appeal to emotion and prejudice." His plea 
was for the Christian religion, but the Supreme Court decided unani- 
,mously in favor of the college, Chief-Justice Story holding that an 
institution may be Christian without being sectarian, and that there 
could be religious instruction even though the minister, missionary, 
and ecclesiastic be excluded. 

266 4 the two great universities : Cambridge and Oxford, situated 
on the banks of the Cam and the Isis (local name for the Thames), 
respectively. 

267 23 endowment income : the endowment of Girard College, which 
included considerable real estate in and about Philadelphia, increased 
in value from ^5,260,000 in 183 1, to ^26,925,000 in 1898 (when this 
address was delivered), or a fivefold increase. — 29 mariner and mer- 
chant : Mr. Girard so describes himself in the first sentence of his will. 

268 1 facts and things, etc. : Mr. Girard says in his will, " I would 
have them taught facts and things, rather than words and signs." 

269 25 named his vessels after the great French authors : four fine 
trading vessels, the pride of Philadelphia in their day, were respectively 
named by Girard the Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesqicieu^ and Helvethis. 

270 13 the man who was so unworthy to write his first biography- 
the allusion is to one Stephen Simpson, who wrote the first biography 
(1832) of Mr. Girard. — 24 Colonel Charters: Francis Charters (1675- 
1732) — also Chartres and Charteris — was a notorious English gambler 
and profligate. By a combination of skill, trickery, and effrontery he 

■ acquired large sums of money by gambling; and by loaning the money 
thus obtained at exorbitant rates of interest he amassed a large for- 
tune. In Pope's verses Charters's name is frequently introduced as a 
synonym of depravity and deviltry. When he knew that he was dying 
he expressed his w^illingness to give ;/!^30,ooo to be assured that there 
was no hell, remarking at the same time that the existence of heaven 
was to him a matter of indifference. Following his death the April 
number of the Gentleman^ s Magazine (II, 718) contained the pungent 
epitaph by Dr. Arbuthnot, the concluding lines of which are : " Think 
not his life useless to mankind. Providence connived at his execrable 



BEVERIDGE 363 

designs to give to after ages a conspicuous proof and example of how 
small estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by His bestow- 
ing it on the most unworthy of all mortals." — Pope's lVo7-ks, III, 129. 

272 6 the siege of Zutphen . . . death of Sir Philip Sidney : Zutphen 
is a fortified town of Holland. Sidney was an officer in the English 
expedition to the Netherlands (i 585-1 586). Certain historians (for 
reasons best known to themselves) have questioned the truth of the 
famous incident at the battle of Zutphen (September 26, 1586), when 
Sidney, mortally wounded, passed a cup of water to a dying soldier. 
It is unquestioned, however, that he owed his death to an impulse of 
romantic generosity. The lord marshal happening to enter the field of 
Zutphen without greaves, Sidney cast off his also, to put his life in the 
same peril, and thus exposed himself to the fatal shot. — 13 the charge 
of Balaklava : during the Crimean war a series of engagements between 
the Russians and the Allies took place near Balaklava, October 25, 1854. 
Through a misconception of the general-in-chief's order the English 
Light Brigade was ordered to charge the Russian artillery. With a 
battery in front and on each side the Brigade hewed its way past the 
guns in front and routed the enemy's cavalry. Of 670 horsemen 198 
returned. This charge has been immortalized by Tennyson in his " The 
Charge of the Light Brigade." — 23 the tablet: a marble sarcophagus 
and statue of Girard stand in the vestibule of the main building of 
Girard College. — 27" sent forth a venture : note the appropriateness of 
the figure used. 

Queries. Does the Conclusion (paragraph 25) violate the law of 
sequence ? Is it closely related to the four preceding paragraphs ? Is 
the transition too abrupt ? 

TRIBUTE TO MARCUS A. HANNA — BEVERIDGE 

A few of Mr. Beveridge's speeches have been issued in pamphlet 
form, and these are political discussions, — except an address delivered 
at the dedication of Indiana's monuments on the battlefield of Shiloh, 
Tennessee, April 6, 1903, which resembles closely the address in this 
volume. 

274 9 on and up . . . the true, the beautiful, and the good : is the use 
of these trite phrases justifiable ? The origin of the latter phrase is 
probably to be found in Victor Cousin's book, Du vrai^ du beaic, etdii bicn. 

276 20 roof trees : a roof tree is the beam in the angle of a roof; 
hence the roof itself. — 27 Antaeus : a mythological giant who was invisi- 
ble so long as he was in contact with the earth. 

277 1 Villon (1431-14S4): one of the earliest French poets. 



3^4 



NOTES 



MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION — COCKRAN 

Bibliography. No books on or by Mr. Cockran have as yet been 
published. Most of the speeches by him that have appeared in print 
are newspaper reports. A few speeches have been issued in pamphlet 
form. A speech on the Negro Problem is published in the report of the 
proceedings of the Negro Conference, at Montgomery, Alabama, 1898. 
The oration in this volume is included in a work of two volumes, — 
Joh7i Marshall : His Life, Character, and Judicial Services (1903). 

Chronology of Principal Orations and Speeches. 1895 — The Tariff; 
The Currency. 1896 — Honest Money (in answer to Mr. Bryan) ; The 
Irish Question (at a celebration of Robert Emmet's birthday)'. 1898 
— The Negro Problem. 1900 — Labor and Capital; Expansion and 
Wages; Imperialism. 1901 — John Marshall and the Constitution. 
1904 — The American Merchant Marine ;" The Issue of 1904 ; Executive 
Usurpation. 

281 21 the battered gateways of Far Cathay: the invasion of China 
by the allied armies during the Boxer uprising of i960. 

283 10 Danton (i 759-1 794) was thrown into prison by Robespierre, his 
rival as leader of the French Revolution. Five days afterwards he was 
condemned by a revolutionary tribunal, and executed the same day. 

284 22 the greatest Englishman of modern times: Gladstone. — 
24 Marshall found a plan, etc. : compare this sentence with Webster's 
saying of Hamilton : " He smote the rock of our national resources, 
and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth ; he touched the corpse 
of our public credit, and it sprang upon its feet." 

286 29 United States against Fisher: 2 Cranch 358. 

287 12 mandamus to Judge Peters : 5 Cranch 115. — 21 case of Hunter's 
Lessee: 3 Dallas 305. — 33 Marbury against Madison : i Cranch 115. 

288 6 Gibbons against Ogden : 9 Wheacon i. — 9 Brown against 
the State of Maryland: 12 Wheaton 419. — 24 Dartmouth College case: 
4 Wheaton 518. 

289 1 to summarize, etc. : see 285 6-15. 



INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION — SCHURZ 



Bibliography. Mr. Schurz wrote one of the best biographies of Henry 
Clay, for the American Statesmen Series, and also a biography of 
Lincoln, for the Chautauqua Series. His Autobiography was running 
in McClure's Magazine at the time of his death. A volume of his most 
important speeches on slavery and the Civil War was published in 
1865. After that date his principal public addresses w^ere those in the 
Senate, — on the annexation of Santo Domingo, the sales of arms, the 
currency, and general amnesty in the South ; his eulogy on Charles 



SCHURZ 365 

Sumner; his speeches in the presidential campaign of 1884, in support 
of Mr. Cleveland, and in the campaign of 1896, in opposition to Mr. 
Bryan's monetary theories ; and his addresses on civil service reform 
and international arbitration. 

The oration in this volume may well be studied primarily as an argu- 
ment, — for such it is, — and to that end the student should make a 
brief of it, following the plan outlined in detail under the notes on 
Burke. Such a brief will show' at a glance the way in which the ideas 
and arguments are marshaled under the different divisions, — the logi- 
cal sequence and clearness of the thought-expression, the unity in para- 
graph structure, the plain, direct style, and the unity, coherency, and 
convincingness of the oration as a whole. 

296 II... address you, etc. : note how the speaker plunges at once 
into his argument. Why was a further Introduction (which might be 
considered as ending with the first sentence) unnecessary .-' — 11 Hugo 
Grotius's time : Grotius (i 583-1645) was a celebrated Dutch jurist, theo- 
logian, statesman, and poet, the founder of the science of international 
law. His chief work, published in 1625, is De jure belli et pads. 

2.97 6 preclude war : the general line of argument here advanced is 
expressed by David Starr Jordan, in his customary epigrammatic style, 
as follows : " The day of the nations as nations is passing. National 
ambitions, national hopes, national aggrandizements : all these may 
become public nuisances . . . The men of the world as men, not as 
nations, are drawing closer together. The needs of commerce are 
stronger than the will of nations, and the final guarantee of peace and 
good will among men will be not ' the parliament of nations,' but the 
self-control of men." 

300 23 Venezuela message: on December 17, 1895, Tiesident Cleve- 
land submitted to Congress a special message concerning a long- 
standing dispute between Venezuela and Great Britain over their 
respective boundaries in South America. In 1887 the dispute had 
resulted in the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the two 
countries. On February 20, 1895, ^^ the suggestion of the President, 
Congress, by joint resolution, recommended to Great Britain and Vene- 
zuela the reference of their dispute to friendly arbitration, but Great 
Britain refused. Then followed the message referred to, in which the 
President said : 

" If a European power, by an extension of its boundaries, takes pos- 
session of the territory of one of our neighboring republics against its 
will, . . . this is the precise action which President Monroe declared to 
be ' dangerous to our peace and safety.' . . . Having labored faith- 
fully for many years to induce Great Britain to submit this dispute to 



366 NOTES 



m 



impartial arbitration, and having been finally apprised of her refusal to 
do so, nothing remains but to accept the situation, . . . and to deal with 
it accordingly .... It is now incumbent upon the United States to 
determine . . . what is the true divisional line between the republic of 
Venezuela and British Guiana. ... I suggest that the Congress pro- 
vide for a commission to make the necessary investigation and report. 
When such report is made and accepted, it will, in my opinion, be the 
duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power . . . the 
appropriation by Great Britain of any lands which of right belong to 
Venezuela." 

In England the publication of the message caused profound agita- 
tion and amazement, and aroused no little resentment. In Congress the 
message was received with approval, and the press, for the most part, 
applauded it as American, vigorous, and just. But there were men of 
influence in and out of Congress w^ho questioned the President's inter- 
pretation of the Monroe Doctrine, and the wisdom of confronting 
Great Britain with an implied threat of war before the merits of the 
dispute were determined. The following year, however, Great Britain 
receded from her former refusal (Secretary Olney having promised that 
undisputed possession of any territory for fifty years should be con- 
clusive evidence of title, thus giving Lord Salisbury an opportunity for 
a graceful withdrawal) and the dispute was happily settled by arbitra- 
tion. On January 2, 1896, before the New York Chamber of Commerce, 
Mr. Schurz delivered a strong speech on this question, deprecating the 
prevailing "jingoism" and favoring arbitration, — pursuing the same 
general line of argument found in the oration in this volume. 

303 24 Gushing (1842-1874): an American naval officer, noted on 
account of his exploit in blowing up the Confederate ironclad ram 
Albe77iarle at Plymouth, North Carolina, on the night of October 27, 
1864. He attacked her in a small launch carrying a torpedo. Forcing 
his way within the chain of logs which formed part of her defense, he 
exploded the torpedo under the ram's overhang. — 28 what a mocking 
delusion : what kind of argument is here employed ? Mr. Schurz's refu- 
tation of alleged reasons for w^ar suggests also the assertions frequently 
heard immediately following our war with Spain, — which occurred two 
years after this address was delivered, ^- that the war had aroused the 
spirit of national patriotism, and had been especially helpful in reuniting 
the North and the South. 

304 19 I have seen war : Mr. Schurz's war record is one of which 
he may well be proud. In the spring of 1863 he was commissioned 
a major-general, for meritorious services. Soon thereafter, President 



SPALDING 367 

Lincoln, reviewing the army of the Potomac, pronounced Schurz's 
division the most soldierly in the Une. His troops, at a heavy loss, 
checked the advance of Jackson at Chancellorsville ; and at Gettysburg, 
in the defense against the world-famed charge of Pickett, his artillery 
was used with fearful effect. In concluding a review of Schurz's mili- 
tary career, Dr. A. Jacobi, who participated with him in the revolution- 
ary movement for constitutional liberty in Germany, says : " Thus 
closed the military career of a man who, at the outbreak of the war, 
mastered the problems of strategy and tactics, who was rapid in com- 
binations under fire, who, as his men often boasted, was always himself 
seen 'on the firing line,' who was wise in counsel, magnanimous in vic- 
tory, the friend of the fallen foe, and among the first to hold forth the 
hand of reunion and fellowship." 

308 24 Alabama case : the Alabajna w^as a wooden steam-sloop built 
for the Confederate States at Birkenhead, England. Her commander 
was Captain Semmes, of the Confederate navy. Her crew and equip- 
ment were English. She cruised from 1862 to 1864, destroying American 
shipping, and was sunk by the A'earsarge, off Cherbourg, France, June 10, 
1864. Claims for damages were preferred against Great Britain by the 
United States for the losses caused by this and other ships which were 
fitted out or supphed in British ports under the direction of the Con- 
federate government. Thereupon each countiy appointed a commission 
of representatives for the adjustment of such claims. The commission 
met at Washington, and on May 8, 187 r, concluded a treaty, known as 
the "Treaty of Washington," which referred the claims to a tribunal 
to be composed of five members, named respectively by the govern- 
ments of the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and 
Brazil. The United States claimed, in addition to direct damages, con- 
sequential or indirect damages ; while Great Britain contended against 
any liability whatever, and especially against any liability for indirect 
damages. The tribunal awarded a gross sum of $15,500,000 in gold to 
the United States in satisfaction for all claims. 

310 10 Therefore, etc. : note the impact of the brief Conclusion, and 
the effectiveness of the direct address. Would a general summary of 
the arguments at the opening of paragraph 27 strengthen it ? 

OPPORTUNITY— SPALDING 

Bibliography. Bishop Spalding has written : Essays and Revie^os ; 
The Religiojis Mission of the Irish People ; America and Other Poerns ; 
Songs: chiefly from the German; Aphorisms atid Peflections. His ora- 
tions and addresses are included in a series of six volumes dealing with 



368 NOTES 

educational, sociological, and religious topics, as follows : Education 
and the Higher Life ; Things of the Mind ; Thoughts and Theories of 
Life and Education ; Opportttnity , and Other Essays and Addresses ; 
Religion, Agnosticis7n, ctfid Education ; Socialism and Labor and Other 
Arguments. A memorial volume, commemorative of the opening of 
Spalding Institute, 1898, treats of Bishop Spalding and his work. 

Chronology of Principal Addresses. 1899 — Empire or Republic; 
The University and the Teacher ; The University : a Nursery of the 
Higher Life ; Opportunity ; The Patriot ; Woman and the Highei 
Education. 1901 — Assassination and Anarchy. 1902 — An Orator 
and Lover of Justice (eulogy of John P. Altgeld). 

The oration, which, as will be seen, is essentially a sermon, is a good 
example in the handling of a subject which is old, yet ever new, of 
truths often presented yet eternally true, and hence always of present 
interest. Such a subject, however, would rarely be a desirable one for 
a student to attempt, for to say anything new or original on it would 
be well-nigh impossible. The originality must consist alone in original 
treatment, — in the new light thrown upon it, and in the fresh manner 
of expressing familiar truths, — and in this regard Bishop Spalding's 
style will repay careful study. 

312 26 Ouida (1840- ) : Louise De la Ramee : an English novel- 
ist of French extraction. 

316 4 Abdiel : the only servant in " Paradise Lost " (v. 896) who 
remained loyal when Satan incited the angels to revolt. 

318 8 Kimberley : the center of the South African diamond fields. — 
10 one who knew how to look: Cecil Rhodes. 



SALT — VAN DYKE 

Bibliography. Two small volumes, containing some of Dr. van Dyke's 
sermons and addresses, have been published : The Open Door and 
foy and Power. A centennial oration, delivered at the University of 
Georgia, entitled " Ruling Classes in a Democracy," was published in 
the Outlook of November 23, 1901. References to magazine articles 
on Dr. van Dyke as a writer and preacher will be found in Poole's Index. 

In striking contrast to many sermons, even a cursory reading of 
Dr. van Dyke's address will show its unity, clearness, cogency, and con- 
creteness. The Introduction (paragraphs i to 8 inclusive) consists of 
an exposition of the text and its application. In the threefold division 
of the Discussion, as indicated by the Roman numerals, the initial sen- 
tence in each division is a key-sentence which contains the central 
thought of that division, to wit : I. Men of intelHgence may exercise an 
influence for good in the world, if they will put their culture to right 
use (paragraph 9) ; II. Such men owe a duty to society in regard to the 
evils which corrupt and degrade it (paragraph 13) ; and III. In perform- 
ing this duty, religion is essential (paragraph 20). The Conclusion is a 
strong, direct appeal to his hearers to do their part in the performance 
of such duties (paragraph 27). 



)Y^ 



VAN DYKE 369 

332 5 Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) : an Italian Franciscan friar 
and famous preacher. — 8 Fra Angelico (1387-1455) : one of the most 
celebrated of the early Italian painters. His works were made the 
models for religious painters of his own and succeeding generations. — 
9 Chevalier Bayard (1475-1524) : a French national hero, called "the 
knight without fear and without reproach." — 10 Sir Philip Sidney : see 
272 (), note. — Henry Havelock (1795-1857) : an English general in India, 
famous in the relief of Lucknow, 1857. — Chinese Gordon (1833-1885): 
an English soldier who acted as adviser of the Chinese government in 
its relations to Russia in 1800. He was killed at the storming of 
Khartoum, Egypt. — 11 Knights of the Holy Ghost: VOrdre dii Saint- 
Esprit (The Order of the Holy Ghost) W'as an order of knighthood 
founded in 1578 by Henry III, king of France. — 1(5 Howard (1726- 
1790) : an English philanthropist, best known for his work in behalf of 
prison reform. — Wilberforce : see 176 18, note. — Raikes (1735-1811): 
an Englisher publisher, noted as a philanthropist. He was the founder 
of the modern Sunday school. — Charles Brace (1826-1890) : an Ameri- 
can author and philanthropist, associated in the early work of the " New 
York Children's Aid Society." 

333 27 Richard Porson (i 759-1808) : an English classical scholar, 
famous for his know^ledge of Greek. — 28 Thomas Guthrie (1803-1873) : 
a Scottish clergyman, orator, and philanthropist. 

336 14 cast a vote, etc. : in favor of Mr. Bryan for president. 

337 22 Ring in the valiant man and free, etc.: from Tennyson's 
" In Memoriam." 



ANNOUNCEMENTS 



THE PRINCIPLES OF ARGU 
MENTATION 

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 

By GEORGE P. BAKER, Professor of English in Harvard University, and 
H. B. HUNTINGTON, Assistant Professor of English in Brown University 



l2mo. Cloth. 677 pages. List price, ^1.25 j mailing price, jJJ 1.40 



IN the ten years since " The Principles of Argumen- 
tation" first appeared the argumentative work in our 
colleges has so developed that the author, assisted by 
Professor H. B. Huntington of Brown University, has 
thoroughly revised the old book and enlarged it. 

The most important changes are in the treatment of 
persuasion and analysis, the former subject being pre- 
sented in a manner which is entirely new in text-books, 
but has been tested by some years of use in Harvard 
classes. The treatment of this difficult subject is in- 
tended to apply not only to courses in written argument 
but also to those in oratory and debate. The chapters 
on the nature of argunientation and on kinds of evidence 
have been much simplified. The illustrative material 
throughout the book has been amplified, and the volume 
presents a fuller, yet clearer and simpler, treatment than 
is to be found in the original book. 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



BOOKS ON 

ENGLISH LITERATURE 



List 
price 



Alexander's Introduction to the Poetry of Robert Browning ^i .00 

Athenaeum Press Series: 26 volumes now ready. 

Baldwin's Inflections and Syntax of Malory's Morte d'Arthur i .40 

Bellamy's Twelve English Poets 75 

Browne's Shakspere's Versification . .25 

Corson's Primer of English Verse i.oo 

Emery's Notes on English Literature . . . . ,. . . . i.oo 
Garnett's Selections in English Prose from Elizabeth to 

Victoria 1.50 

Gayley's Classic Myths in English Literature 1.50 

Gayley and Scott's Literary Criticism 1.25 

Gummere's Handbook of Poetics i.oo 

Hudson's Classical English Reader ... .... . i.oo 

Hudson's Essays on English, Studies in Shakespeare, etc. .25 
Hudson's Life,Art, and Characters of Shakespeare. 2 vols, 
retail, cloth, $4.00; half morocco, ^8.00 

Hudson's Text-book of Poetry . 1.25 

Hudson's Text-book of Prose 1.25 

Kent's Shakespeare Note-Book 60 

Lewis' Beginnings of English Literature 90 

Minto's Characteristics of the English Poets 

Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature 

Painter's Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism . . . 
Phelps' Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement . 
Saintsbury's Loci Critici. Passages Illustrative of Critical 

Theory and Practice from Aristotle Downward . . 1.50 

Sherman's Analytics of Literature 1.25 

Smith's Synopsis of English and American Literature . . .80 
Standard English Classics: 31 volumes now ready. 

Thayer's Best Elizabethan Plays 1-25 

White's Philosophy of American Literature 30 

White's Philosophy of English Literature i-oo 

Winchester's Five Short Courses of Reading in English 

Literature 4© 



Mailing 
price 

>I.IO 



1.50 

1.50 

.90 

I.OO 



1.50 

.85 

1. 10 
1. 10 

1.6s 
1.65 
1.40 
1. 10 
1. 10 
.27 



40 
40 
70 
95 
65 
65 

95 
10 



65 
40 

90 

40 

35 
10 

•45 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



ENGLISH COMPOSITION AND 
RHETORIC 

Text-books and works of refer efice for high schools , 
acadettiieSy a?id colleges 



List Mailing 

price price 

,1.25 $1.40 

.50 .55 

1. 15 1.25 



Baker's Principles of Argumentation (Revised Edition) 
Bancroft's Method of English Composition . , . 

Cairns' Forms of Discourse 

With an introductory chapter on style. 
Cairns' Introduction to Rhetoric 90 i.oo 

Gardiner, Kittredge, and Arnold's The Elements of 

English Composition i.oo i.io 

(The Mother Tongue, Book III.) 

Genung's Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis . . . 1.12 1.25 
Studies in style and invention, designed to accompany the 
author's Practical Elements of Rhetoric. 

Genungr's Outlines of Rhetoric i.oo i 



Genung's Practical Elements of Rhetoric . . . 
Genung's Working Principles of Rhetoric . . . 
Gilmore's Outlines of the Art of Expression . . 

Lockwood's Lessons in English 

Lockwood and Emerson's Composition and Rhetoric 
Newcomer's Practical Course in English Composition 

Scott and Denney's Rhetoric Tablet 

No. I, white paper (ruled). No. 2, tinted paper (ruled). 
Sixty sheets in each, 

Tompkins' Science of Discourse 



1.25 I 

1.40 I 

,60 

1. 12 I 

I.oo I 

.80 

•15 



10 
40 
55 
65 
25 
15 
90 



I.oo I.IO 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



FULTON AND TRUEBLOOD'S 

CHOICE READINGS FROM POPULAR 
AND STANDARD AUTHORS 

By ROBERT I. FULTON, Professor of Elocution and Oratory and Dean of the 
School of Oratory of the Ohio Wesleyan University, and THOMAS C. TRUE- 
BLOOD, Professor of Elocution and Oratory in the University of Michigan 



i2mo. Cloth, xix + 729 pages 



IN this convenient and attractive volume the selections are 
alphabetically arranged, and so classified under the fourteen 
divisions or headings that the character of a piece can at once 
be determined. This classification, together with the Diagram of 
Principles, will prove a valuable aid in the interpretation and 
correct reading of the selections. 

The choice scenes from the popular dramas give the parts of 
the plays best suited to public readings, with all necessary abridg- 
ment and explanation of character, plot, and incident. 

The indices to choice readings from Shakespeare, the Bible, 
and Hymn-Book are a special feature. In this way the Student 
is aided in selecting from a wide field of valuable matter that is 
already pubhshed in a cheap form, and is universally accessible. 

The volume contains a complete diagram of the principles of 
vocal expression, as recognized in the " Philosophy of the Human 
Voice," by Dr. James Rush, presenting an outline of the science 
of elocution in a few pages. 

OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHORS 

PRACTICAL ELEMENTS OF ELOCUTION 

CHART ILLUSTRATING THE PRINCIPLES OF VOCAL EXPRESSION 

COLLEGE CRITIC'S TABLET 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



JAN 10 IW 



